Buddy came by today with a piece of 1/4" diamond plate aluminum he is
making a dashboard for his boat out of. He had come by a couple weeks
ago, and roughed it out on my WT bandsaw, and now needed to cut the
holes for the gauges, Tach etc. They were all bigger than normal
sizes..so had no hole saws big enough. I tried a decent wood type
circle cutter, which broke, made one up by tigging a piece of 3/8 x
1/2" tool steel to a 1/2" shank, and put it into my heavy boring head,
and grinding a tripanning profile on the tool steel. Which ran 1 hole
then broke the tool steel in half. Blink blink....

I finally finished all the gauge holes by hole sawing them, then using
a tapered face mill to plunge to the right diameter, and the Big tach
hole was done by hole sawing, then roughing to diameter with using
x/y handwheels and a big 2 flute end mill, finishing with a die
grinder and a carbide burr. T

there has to be a better way.

As the diamond plate "diamonds" stand proud..I finished up the gage
holes using a big face mill and put in a slight counter bore so the
gauges sit flat on a machined surface. Actually looks pretty good, but
took a lot of steps to do something that should be pretty simple.

Anyone got a link for a plan for a decent circle cutter? Something
tough enough to do this sort of thing? Something that will tripan
about a 6 or 8" hole or smaller and is adjustable? Or a pic of how
you made one? Id like to avoid reenventing the wheel.

Thanks

Gunner

"I think this is because of your belief in biological Marxism.
As a genetic communist you feel that noticing behavioural
patterns relating to race would cause a conflict with your belief
in biological Marxism." Big Pete, famous Usenet Racist