This reminds me of a little anecdote. A few years ago I was in a
university machine shop in the US trying to make a piece of research
equipment on the cheap. Too cheap to spend $100 on the aluminium stock
to build it. So one of the guys I was working with scrounged some cast
aluminium ingots from a friend of his. I have no idea of their origin
or intended purpose. Anyway, they were about 2" x 4" in cross section
and full of sand. We were working after hours and the main machine shop
was closed, but we needed to cut some lengths from the ingot. Our
little department machine shop had a bandsaw - one of those small
vertical bandsaws for woodworking with a circular housing at the top
and bottom, and altogether a bit cheesy. So my friend decides it would
be a good idea to use it to cut the ingot. I suggest we call it a day,
get a coffee and pizza and come back in the morning to use the decent
horizontal bandsaw in the main machine shop. I had visions of burning
out the motor on the little bandsaw. But we give it a go. After all,
it's out of hours. I was rather surprised that this little saw did
manage to cut the ingot, although it struggled and wheezed. I guess the
moral is that aluminium is much easier to cut than steel!

Chris