Drilling into Aluminum with a Spade Bit
Should you use a wood-cutting spade-bit in metal? Specifically Aluminum. The internet seems to have to primary opinions, "no, that's really dangerous," and "I've done it." This week, with Steve Westwood and a bunch of 9th grade robotics students, I changed my opinion from the former to the latter.
- Use a drill press. I still feel like hand-drills would be dangerous (heheh, we'll see when and if I change my mind on that), and might not be effective.
- You want "chips," not just friction and tiny grindings.
- Using cutting fluid (or some other oil in a pinch?) will at least tell you if you're heating things up to the smoke point of the cutting fluid, give you a warning that you're getting too hot, and a tiny thermal buffer for you to realize, "whoa that's too hot," and stop.
- For the love of the FSM, clamp your work in such a way that if it becomes unclamped and spins, it won't disembowel you or remove appendages. Sheet metal especially. But long bar-stock, you can clamp in such a way that, when it spins, it'll hit the vertical post of the drill press.
Yay!
- Use a drill press. I still feel like hand-drills would be dangerous (heheh, we'll see when and if I change my mind on that), and might not be effective.
- You want "chips," not just friction and tiny grindings.
- Using cutting fluid (or some other oil in a pinch?) will at least tell you if you're heating things up to the smoke point of the cutting fluid, give you a warning that you're getting too hot, and a tiny thermal buffer for you to realize, "whoa that's too hot," and stop.
- For the love of the FSM, clamp your work in such a way that if it becomes unclamped and spins, it won't disembowel you or remove appendages. Sheet metal especially. But long bar-stock, you can clamp in such a way that, when it spins, it'll hit the vertical post of the drill press.
Yay!
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