I agree with Brian on the safety side of cutting aluminium, it can really launch when it grabs (not IF but WHEN).
There is a "special" wax that you can get to put on grinding and cut off disks to stop the aluminium from building up on them. I just use bees wax which is 90% as good as the "special" wax at 20% of the cost. Just start up your grinder and rub the wax block on the disk before you grind the aluminium.. I also use a belt sander to finish of the surfaces, a little bit of bees wax on the belt helps to polish it up nicely (the belt I use for this is only used for polishing type work and was a worn out 150 grit belt before I used it for polishing) Regards Barry Kruyssen Cairns, Australia k...@bigpond.com http://www.users.bigpond.com/kr2/kr2.htm -----Original Message----- From: krnet-boun...@mylist.net [mailto:krnet-boun...@mylist.net] On Behalf Of Brian Kraut Sent: Thursday, 13 July 2006 1:45 PM To: KRnet Subject: RE: KR> cutting aluminium If the aluminum doesn't get hot enough to burn you it should be fine. Aluminum is a big no no for grinding wheels though. As a young kid working in a machine shop I got reamed out pretty good by an old machinist that the wheel can get hot and explode on you. I don't know if you can really do that or not, but I do know that grinding wheels get all clogged up if you try grinding aluminum on them and if you keep trying to grind with a clogged wheel they just get hot and don't really grind anything any more. Using a cutoff disk on aluminum I would at the very least make sure that I wore goggles and kept all of my body parts out of the plane of the disk in case it did decide to come apart. I have used carbide blades on a chop saw and a radial arm saw to cut aluminum. I have also used a table saw, but I highly don't recommend it. On the chop saw and radial arm saw the important thing to do different than cutting wood is to clamp the material on both sides of the blade. When doing wood you normally only clamp one side or just hold it with your hand. If you don't clamp both sides and cut slowly, especially as you are finishing the cut, you take the chance of the blade grabbing the part and launching it accross the room. Take those precautions and they really do a great job.
