Hand held routing of 0.5mm aluminium sheet?

[flanajb]

I have some designs in my head that involve aluminium and burred veneer and I want to know whether I could laminate 0.5mm aluminium to a substrate and then use a router to trim the edge. I doubt this is possible with a hand held router, but I wanted to ask as I cannot think of another way of edge trimming it.

Any pointers welcomed

Thanks

 

[CHJ]

0.5mm should not be a problem at all as long as it is well bonded to stop it buckling up from the surface.
One way to help prevent it lifting is to sandwich the piece being edged with a sacrificial piece of ply on top.

Make sure you are cutting in the correct direction, do not attempt to climb mill.

 

[flanajb]

0.5mm should not be a problem at all as long as it is well bonded to stop it buckling up from the surface.
One way to help prevent it lifting is to sandwich the piece being edged with a sacrificial piece of ply on top.

Make sure you are cutting in the correct direction, do not attempt to climb mill.

That is a good idea regarding the sacrificial piece of ply on the top. I am planning on vacuum bagging it with epoxy so that should give a very good bond.

I will give Wealden a call on Monday to ask what cutter they would recommend for such a task

 

[adidat]

Robert Ingham chamfers brass on his router table, and i have seen a TCT cutter go into a iron sash clamp head with no problems.

and ali is pretty soft, so I doubt you need a special cutter

adidat

 

[marcros]

i managed to rout into my woodrat which is aluminium. didnt seem to make the router think twice. .5mm i doubt you will notice any difference to timber.

 

[Tinbasher]

We used to edge trim a laminated Formica + 1/8th Aluminium material when outfitting warships.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Sharp cutters - have a spare handy in case it dulls. I've routed carpet edging strip and similar bits of DIY aluminium with no problem.

The only thing I could see being a nuisance is the swarf: it's tiny flakes and goes everywhere. Even that won't matter unless it digs in to a wood surface, in which case it could get stuck there. So I think you need some pretty good dust extraction and to clean the surfaces fairly regularly with a vacuum and paintbrush. That should keep it under control.

The only other issue would be if the wood next to it and the aluminium need radically different cutter speeds - that is if you're doing both together.

I'd say talk to Wealden, as you intend, and experiment.

Cheers,

E.