How To Mill Inside Sheet Metal

Normally sheetmetal is machined on a cnc punch and it s not too practical to mill it due to fixturing issues.

How to mill inside sheet metal.

The sheet should be supported in one hand whilst the other turns the handle thus drawing the sheet through the rollers. We build an operator control panel for our equipment that requires milling a pocket out of a sheet metal box for a joystick. It is ground slightly thinner toward the center to provide side clearance. But i know many of you have done this successfully.

These cutters are used for cutoff operations and for milling deep narrow slots and are made in widths from 1 32 to 3 16 inch. I found that only a fraction of a millimeter could be milled at a time i listened to. Once the rollers are in the correct position the mill is ready to roll down the metal. The most trouble seems to come from trying to hold the workpiece as rigidly as possible.

These inserts are made of extremely resistant steels which have far higher hardnesses than the workpieces to be machined. The metal slitting saw milling cutter is essentially a very thin plain milling cutter. The kinds of pieces i d mill would be 6061 0 063 aluminum about 7 square or smaller. The shear is manipulated.

This tool is bench mounted and capable of cuts in most sheet metals. The milling is carried out by tools that are fitted with indexable inserts. The indexable inserts remove material from the surface of the sheet metal part by fast rotation. Help choosing best setup for milling pockets in sheet metal box.

π 180 x b x ir k x mt bend allowance ba where b is the angle complementary to your desired bend angle 1 to 180 degrees mt is the thickness of the material ir is the inside radius and k is the k factor. Put on ear defenders and ear protectors switch on and carefully plunge milling slightly into the aluminium. You can find your bend allowance with the following formula. The sheet should be caught as it comes through and its thickness checked using a vernier calliper.