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Old 11th Jun 2020, 3:27 pm   #15
Radio Wrangler
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
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Default Re: Cutting hole in 1/8" ali panel

Keeping pressure on for the reverse stroke also means it takes about as much energy to move the file as it does in the forwards direction, and you don't even cut anything! Why do unproductive work?

Oh, you also make sound effects that broadcast over a five mile radius "Over Here! Guy that doesn't even know how to use a file! Step tight this way!"

Nibblers have the disadvantage that their anvil leaves marks in aluminium. Put some masking tape on and you have the added entertainment of it quickly bashing through the tape, and then it leaves marks in the aluminium.

My fall-back for any shape of hole is to make an over-sized hole in mdf of something amenable, and use that as a template for the torch of my plasma cutter. But the nuisance with aluminium is that I'd have to change over to a feed from my spare argon bottle. You can cut steel with compressed air, but you do need argon for aluminium. Paintwork will be discombobularised.

David
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