Need Help In Cutting My Aluminum Rods

Can you use wire cutters or side nippers for the aluminum rods? Just chamfer the end of the rods to get rid of the crimp on a belt sander. Might be woo large for wire cutters though, just a thought.
 
Hi all - thanks for the replies. I need a machine. Bolt cutters won't do it as it's still manual (I have to do cut rods a lot) and the cut edges from a cutter might not go in my collet chuck in my lathe.

That HF cut off looks good but unfortunately I can't get it here in the UK and it looks like it might struggle for the stainless steel from that video I saw.
 
mzayd3 said:
could you just buy the right sized pins? seems like a really tedious task that could be fixed by buying material pre-cut to size.

otherwise, a vertical bandsaw would be a good option, or a portaband resting on it's head, and feed the material into it versus feeding the sawing into the stock.
Click to expand...

I thought about this but a 3 meter length rod is cheaper unfortunately rather than buying them precut to size
 
Bolt cutters would work as Glenn mentioned. Deburr the end with a sander and it should fit in the collet.
 
Asian miter saws are cheap, I used a HF saw with carbide blade to cut a bunch of brass tubing without a problem. The fixturing was made from hardwood and worked just fine for a couple of hundred pieces.

The saw should not cost more than $60 or $70 U.S. and way cheaper if you can find a used one. Set it up with a fine-tooth carbide tipped blade and have at it !
 
A cutoff saw should be faster and will not have a problem with the stainless. The abrasive wheel may gum up with the aluminum. Stainless can be hard on band saw blades. Cutoff saw blades are cheaper than band saw blades. IMO, the band saw offers more versatility for future projects. You had not mentioned what kind of finish you require nor how accurate your cut has to be or what quantity of pieces you are producing. All of these would influence my decision.
 
RJSakowski said:
A cutoff saw should be faster and will not have a problem with the stainless. The abrasive wheel may gum up with the aluminum. Stainless can be hard on band saw blades. Cutoff saw blades are cheaper than band saw blades. IMO, the band saw offers more versatility for future projects. You had not mentioned what kind of finish you require nor how accurate your cut has to be or what quantity of pieces you are producing. All of these would influence my decision.
Click to expand...

Hi,
I need to cut at least 50 pieces a week. I don't need to have the cut finish to a certain neatness because I face them all on the lathe anyway as I chamfer them as well. This is why I don't want to use any cutters because the ends might not fit in my collet and I have at least 50 rods I need to do and I can't be concentrating on each rod trying to get them inside the collet chuck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top