Parting off 130mm Aluminium bar

Whats the best way to part off a 130mm dia aluminium bar. Its 40mm long in case thats relevant

Edited By petro1head on 06/04/2017 13:31:09

On the very few occasions I have done something of that diameter, I have 'parted off' with a band-saw and then machined the cut face to the correct length.

Regards,

Richard

Same as Richard for me at that diameter.

Emgee

Definitely a bandsaw job if I was doing it.

Me? I'd ask a friend if I could use their big lathe!

Neil

Band saw it is then

You know me Neil, I don't have any friends

.

Is that the guy with the 'Super-super-super-super Adept' ??

Nick

I've just done a bit, half that dia. 70mm. Got the parting tool about 20mm in and chickened out, finished with hacksaw. Still not a bad result, not much cleaning up needed.

So you never got to know the colour of adrenalin then.

I had a similar problem except the aluminium was too big for my bandsaw. So I parted as deep as I could get (about 30mm) and then finished off with a hacksaw. I was wrecked afterwards. Whilst still purple and wheezing I remembered that my local metal emporium would have done the cut for a small fee...

Dave

40mm is relevent as it can't be held in the bandsaw vise.I cut some steel in the bandsaw it was 125mm*40mm long, To hold it I glued blocks of wood together that would fit my vise at 100mm and one block on top the same 100mm. these were glued together with gorilla glue after they had set overnight I glued the disc of steel to the wood with the same glue and clamped overnight.This worked and I cut several discs to make pulleys.

Frank

I also take advantage of giving the saw operators at my local stockholders a drink. I had some 45 and 50 mm EN16T to cut a couple of weeks ago. 8 pieces off each bar was worth a fiver to have cut.

I made a two step parting system some years ago and it parted 125 mm seawater resistant for breakfast.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=10176

**LINK**

I will learn some day

.

.

10mm slices being cut off 100 sprockets prior to boring for bearings.

A good set up John,but I don't have an industrial bandsaw capable of holding my chucks only a hobby saw.

Frank

You know I'll get complaints about a picture showing the key left in a chuck

Frank,

There are some ideas in this thread for those of us with small "capacity challenged" bandsaws which will help I think...**LINK**

HTH

Jon

It's the general idea that could be useful. Do you have a drill vice & angle plate that would hold it instead? That sort of thing. Or maybe even set the clamps up on the other side of the saw blade where there is more room. There is nothing on a bandsaw that makes one side of the blade much better to use than the other except the flat saw base. And you can fix that if you wish by bolting or welding bits to the saw. In a one off case you could even knock-up a table at the right height from pallet timber and then burn it later if you are so embarrassed about using wood that you need to destroy the evidence .

Regards,

Richard.

Some interesting ideas, thanks