Using the Shopbot for non ferrous materials

[44henry]

I was wondering how many of you have machined brass and aluminum on your Shopbots. I would like to use this machine to perform some very light cuts in these alloys for one of my classes, but I don't want to overstress the machine. Any thoughts?

Alex Johnson

[oddcoach]

I have cut 1/2" aluminum plate many times with no problems. i used the onsrud bits for aluminum and plain old end mills. both work fine. you have to slow the spindle to 10-12,000 rpm and feed about 1 in/sec you can go faster with the router bits but they are more expensive
hope this helps
John

[ryan_slaback]

Alex,
I also have used the bot in my metals class but I used it to engrave the frctions on a 1/16-1/2" drill gauge of aluminum. I use a dremel v cutter set at 19000 rpm and it does a pretty decent job of engraving the numbers and then marking the center holes. The kids manually do the rest.

[joelschuman]

I used HerSaf insert v-bits on the Bot to engrave over 600 sq ft of free-machining brass sheet and strips for a club in NYC. Ornate script lettering from 1" to 3" high and as much as .08" deep.

[44henry]

Thanks for all the information. I would like to use the the Bot to finish machine some light aluminum castings for our materials class. The CNC vertical mill that we have is not large enough to do this, I just didn't want to strain the Bot too much in the process. Thanks again.

Alex