Planing Aluminum

My thought is that you would risk getting skewered by the piece of aluminium being kicked back, especially if as i think you are proposing to cut across a 2in wide surface. Or having the workpiece kicked out so the cutter is suddenly and unexpectedly exposed.

It’s not necessarily impossible, but at best it’d be a case of taking really light cuts (measured in thou), using pushers while standing well to one side, and proceeding very much at your own risk to self, machine and everything else!! Aluminium, specially in certain grades, has a tendency to pick up on cutters too – with the result that the reaction force suddenly increases.

I doubt you’d get anybody to stand over it from a H&S point of view….

-- Late awakener....

I think I’d be going to a machine shop for this job.

ditto… MACHINE SHOP or new alum

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

I’ve seen aluminum pack into blades where you had to kind of chisel it out. I think I’d pass too.

-- jack -- measure once, curse twice!

And it has a tendency to gall.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

I wouldn’t do it.
I would put on an aluminum blade and do it on my table saw though.
(hair at a time)

The carbide is plenty tough enough to handle the alluminum but the machine isn’t set up to mill metals. The “blades” aren’t made to evacuate metal from the cut like spiral fluted mill tooling is so you get a build up up shavings. You would prob. not be happy with the results.

-- Scott, South Carolina

OK, there seems to be a theme here…....

DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the input, I will pass on it.

I will be able to shim it to make it square, I just dont want to worry about it going out of square.

-- Whether You Think You Can or You Think You Can't, YOU ARE RIGHT!!!

depending on how out of square it is ,if you have a disc sander,make a jig to hold it and run passes untill square,if it isn’t to long.Slow but might work.

-- Only time will tell if it was time well spent

I have an old delta table top planer that I will use to plane really thin aluminum. It is great for anything smaller than an 1/8 inch wide but it beats the blade up pretty bad. It’s hard to cut even wood now because it’s so dull but I don’t use it for that anyways so I don’t care.

I wouldn’t do it. I think if you are a strong person you could keep it under control but I am almost certain that it would come out looking like crap, if it even cut into it.

Cya

-- LAS