On 2010-09-27, Mike Henry wrote:

"Ignoramus21149" wrote in message
...
On 2010-09-27, Karl Townsend wrote:

How bad were the chips?

I had no trouble with my mystery metal AL. Some AL is a stone bitch to
feed the chips up the drill bit, others work great. As nearly all my
metal falls in the mystery metal class, i can't tell you which grade
is best.

You should feed maybe twice as fast as my small run.

Karl


Karl, thanks. I will try on some aluminum junk that I have, first.

Tapping, as Richard noted, may be a challenge.

What tap would you recommend for this (tapping aluminum)?

Thanks

i

If they are through holes, I would go with a gun tap - they push the chips
ahead of the tap. I have a Procunier tapping head you could borrow for a
week or so if that would help. I've tapped a bunch of 0-80 and 4-40 holes
with nary a broken tap so 5/16" shouldn't be a problem for that style of
head.


Mike, did you use that head on a CNC mill?