Bought a bit of Ali bar today!

[MattH]

6" X 8" X 15"!



Going to use a 6" piece of this to make a one piece Z axis plate/spindle mount for my new ATC spindle. Lots and lots of milling to do.

 

[Parm]

I've seen stuff like this and bigger at Mercedes Benz High Performance Engines. They work it on 5 Axis machining centres to make heads and block for their F1 cars

Would love to see what machine you have and how it turns out

 

[MattH]

That's all going to be done manually on my Bridgeport.

The pic below is a mockup of the new Z axis, the big block will replace the plate and small block.
Hopefully my new C3 ballscrew will be turning up tomorrow so I can start putting everything together in Cad.

 

[roofman]

That lump Reminds me of a company i did roof work for many years ago and they made the pedal boxes for the early Airbus aircraft...totally CNC milled from a 3ft cube of high spec alloy..

 

[Robotstar5]

I recall seeing an article on making a motorcycle frame from a single piece of Aluminium on a CNC

 

[roofman]

I recall seeing an article on making a motorcycle frame from a single piece of Aluminium on a CNC

iff you could find that it would be great to read..

 

[Welderpaul]

How stable is ally if large amounts are machined off a big block?

 

[harryb94]

How stable is ally if large amounts are machined off a big block?

Still pretty stable I'd say since its not altering the grain structure or anything, not really any different to chopping a big billet into smaller pieces which I wouldn't have though would be any less stable? Tts done for a fair amount of aircraft parts like ribs, although some stuff is machined from rough forgings rather than billet, also get some bits like skins chemically machined which is interesting stuff but going off topic a bit!

 

[Shox Dr]

Come on you can't leave us dangling like this.... How much did it cost

 

[Woody.v8]

Come on you can't leave us dangling like this.... How much did it cost

He probably swapped it for a turnip

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Come on you can't leave us dangling like this.... How much did it cost

Scrap bin find ?

 

[Spark plug]

How stable is ally if large amounts are machined off a big block?

It's fairly stable, but if you can leave radiuses (bigger the better) in the internal corners helps retain lots of strength.

 

[Parm]

How stable is ally if large amounts are machined off a big block?

It's stable enough to make very high performance engines with

 

[Robotstar5]

iff you could find that it would be great to read..

Think it was an article in MCN

 

[MattH]

Come on you can't leave us dangling like this.... How much did it cost

£30!

 

[Shox Dr]

£30!

Cheeky

 

[CompoSimmonite]

£30!

Though it'd be a lot more than that

 

[MattH]

Yep, the cash came out of my wallet fast before they had a chance to change their minds.

I love having a local scrap merchant that deals with engineering firms.
Charges me £1 per kilo for Ali.

 

[Shox Dr]

Yep, the cash came out of my wallet fast before they had a chance to change their minds.

I love having a local scrap merchant that deals with engineering firms.
Charges me £1 per kilo for Ali.

Nice, wish I lived closer. Do you know what it is

 

[MattH]

Haven't looked because it really doesn't matter for this application. I think it's on the label though.