ways to cut aluminum sheets?

[araugh]

at 10mm thick plasma cutting is going to leave you with a lot of edge cleanup I think, though you should be relatively free of warp if you work hot and fast.

[JohnYayas]

Table saw with a blade with a carbide tip will do just fine. I have cut steel that way.

[james]

Table saw with a blade with a carbide tip will do just fine. I have cut steel that way.

I don't know if I would cut steel this way, but I have cut 3/8 inch aircraft grade aluminum. It helps if you rub the saw table with car wax and get it nice and slick. Push the plate through very slow.

[mixedgas]

If you cut aluminum with a rotary carbide blade, make absolutely sure the aluminum sheet is clamped or bolted down. Clamped down excessively so, with overkill.
[]

I'm a lab machinist, amongst my other duties, for my employer, and we'd much rather see you borrow a bandsaw then go rotary or abrasive. If you have time off on a weekday, approach a local machine shop. In most cases they would rather take a few minutes to help you, then see you do this the hard way. They can then dress the cut edges with a belt sander, saving you a lot of filing. A case of beer usually results in amazing access to machine shop labor, once in a while.
[]

My skilled machinist friends at work taught me to use a vertical belt sander with a large steady rest to shape most of my sheet aluminum, and its quick and fast.
[]
What often happens with Carbide tooling in gummy Aluminum alloys with added Silicon, is the gaps between the Carbide teeth get filled with hot, torn, aluminum shards. (Especially if you cut too fast) The Aluminum then freezes, filling the space between the teeth. The saw/drill bit/milling bit then tries to rotate the stuck aluminum into the work. Of course the tool can't cut if its trying to force a blob of aluminum into the work. When this happens it usually rips the aluminum plate off the base of the tool with great force. If your lucky the motor stalls. Sometimes your not lucky. I have a friend that lost three fingers from holding down thick aluminum sheet while cutting with a rotary carbide blade.
[]
Lock that metal down with many, many, clamps if you use a rotary tool. At home, with the chop saw, I'd use my abrasive blade before I'd reach for the carbide tipped metal blade. Yes, aluminum abrades abrasive blades and the cut edge is a mess, but at the end of the day I like my fingers and eyes.
[]
Steve

[ZeroPoint]

I've cut up to 3/4" aluminum with a table saw equipped with a blade for non-ferrous metals. Has worked well for me so far.

[Finale]

I was suggested a metal cutting guillotine instead when I went to get it plasma cut. It worked perfectly.

[planters]

Well, yes it would. If you have access to one. Just check one thing. The edge that was cut can have a very slight distortion due to the force of the blade. It might bend slightly up or down. The amount of this distortion depends on the nature of the blade and which side was the off cut. Just check it.

[Photonbeam]

I always cut Al plate with radial arm saw, carbide tip blade and water mist cooling. Push the blade slowly into the work instead of pulling (like when cutting wood). Clamp excessively as Steve described. Wear eye AND ear protection - it is very loud.

[VDX]

... on my day-job they're using punch-cutters and hole-punchers for aluminium sheets with max. 6mm thickness - thicker sheets are cut wit bandsaws or CNC-milled for better quality.

In the last company, where I was developing laser-applications for, they used water-jet cutters and CNC-milling ... and sometimes laser-cutting with a 1,5kW fiber-laser.

At home I'm using CNC-milling with up to 30mm thick aluminium plates with 4mm flutes ... when last trying to cut a 8mm thick aluminium sheet with a manual jig-saw ("Stichsäge" in German) and blades meant for aluminium cutting, the feeder snapped in parts ;-(

Viktor