An Aluminum Planer

You can most definatly not use a wood planner as you would in the firest plase injure yourself it could even result in fatal injuries, nor will the blade cut the aluminum it was never designed to carry out work of this nature. The only way which will be safe is a grinder in the same manner that you have been doing it in the past or you must find a safe means to put the material in a milling machine or surface grinder. There is no short cut which is absolutly safe in a situation or application of this nature.

Thanks for the reply, I am not looking for a "short cut" I am looking for a better, more efficient way to get it done. We don't want to get anyone killed here.

The grinding/sanding method also has its risks with fatigue due to hours of work required holding a heavy vibrating angle grinder as well as the aluminum dust that is a by-product of the sanding process.

We have put the plank on our large mill before, but a lot of our product is wider then what the mill will accomodate.

If you dont mind answering, what dangers/risk of serious injury/death would a portable hand held planer with carbide blades present?

thanks

Jamie

The problem rests with the blade which is made from a material which is very brittle and is designed to cut wood which is by far softer than aluminum. The moment that blade gets hot and it will start a aluminum build up on the leading edge, this will lead to that blade shattering and you will end up with flying shards of steel in all directions. In my company we have bought a portable milling machine which clamps onto the plank and then you can machine the material off with safty provided the machine is well clamped to the work piece. These portable machines are avalable from Einhell Maufacturing in Germany.

Try:

Furmanite>Home > Services > On-Site Machining

I have used a copper backing plate on one side of the welded loint. This prevents the bead building up on the other side. The copper can also have a shape Machined into to mould the bead form to a besired shape or to limit the build up of the bead. I have used this techneque when fabricating aluminium moulds to produce plastic products.

High speed impact on carbide blades could shatter them, you have a problem with uneaven weld contours and stability of the plane.

High speed steel would be a better cutting tool.

Better still would be a router wih a single point cutter and a modified base with a clearance chanell and angled to give one sided cuttng.Depth of cut could be increased slowly traversing full length of weld after each adjutment. Finish the last bit with the sander.

Use bevel welds not butt welds and smaller rods. Kick the butts out.

Hand the welder's helper a file to hold for the welder until the weld is certified.

I have know idea if this would work or even be practical but the thought comes to mind of replacing the carbide blade in the sander with a grinding wheel the same shape as the blade and of appropriate grade to grind the aluminium away.

From the post, I take it that a mill would be a viable tool if you could make sure the plank didn't rock. I would suggest the mill with a 'bedplate' beneath the plank that has a v-notch milled in it to accommodate the weld bead for the first pass. It's simple, repeatable, and, if properly set up, presents no danger of nicks or broken cutting tools,

Thanks for all the input everyone, it is appreciated :)

The warnings re: brittle blades flying apart have been noted, thank you.

A lot of our product is too wide for our mill, so that presents another obstacle.

The guys at the R&D facility tried a hand held planer last night and it apparently worked quite well. If we do take this approach we will definately look into a blade/speed that will handle the aluminum.

thanks again!

Control of the weld joint is important for weld form consistency.

If you have control over the aluminum extrusion design, change the joint design to allow proper weld strength and still be below flush.

If weld quality and strength are critical, mechanically removing .02-.03 inches of the extrusion surface at the weld joint will provide clean aluminum for the weld joint and reduce containments in the finished weld joint.

An acid cleaned joint area just prior to welding will improve the weld quality and significantly reduce weld joint dirt or gas inclusion, thus reducing rework.

Robotic welding is also a method of reducing the weld size and improving the joint appearance, manual welding is less reliable and varies during the shift.

If you do desire to use the mechanical removal of the weld crown, consider using a special saw arrangement, stack several carbide saw blades side by side to be wider than the weld crown. As an inexpensive test idea use a heavy duty Skill type electric hand saw with stacked saw blades and adjust the depth of cut to achieve the desired finished appearance. A more permanent design for long term solution would be a larger design. A 10 to 20 inch saw diameter would allow the carbide inserts to run cooler and eliminate aluminum build up on the inserts. A coolant on the saw blades also reduce the tendancy for aluminum buildup on the inserts.

I have many years experience with manufacturing aluminum structures and extruded panels.

Contact me direct if you desire.

Peter

Hey Peter,

Thanks for the input. We currently use a track welder for welding the plank joint. I suppose taking the time to properly prep the material (bevel the edges) prior to welding would help in reducing the ammount of excess weld above the surface.

As for having our extrusion modified to come pre bevelled, this wouldn't be a good soloution as we routinely rip the plank to different widths.

A dado blade on a Skill saw has been discussed as well as a router.

We'll just have to bash this around a little more to see what works best and is a safe practice.

Thanks again for all the input.

Jamie

Jamie

Consider using the same stacked blade concept to bevel one side of the panel when you rip the panel. the adjacent blades tooth forms would be on a 30 to 45 degree angle, (special left and right hand designs can be made) i.e. a 20 inch main blade and 16 inch diameter bevel blades , this will let you cut a nominal 2inch thick panel.)
to provide a weld bevel on one side as you saw the panel. Remember to use water soluable coolant.

Mill the drum holding the carbide planer blades so as to have a negative rake on the blade angle. Also, a set of adjustable depth guides on the shoe of the planer (on either side of the weld) will prevent taking too large a cut.

Carbide tipped saw blades are routinely used for cutting aluminum, they have teeth of negative rake....why not a planer? High speed would be key to small chips and no gouging.

Hi,

Why don't you look into Submarine industry since they deal a lot with Al?

Are the joints welded from one side? We use ceramic backing to make a flush weld on the root side. The face side requires an experienced operator to make a flush weld.

We weld the plank on both sides.

The plank itself is about .625" thick and there is no bevelling done, but we get good penetration, about 2/3 OA thickness.

There is no backing on the other side.

I personally feel that (as an ex welder fitter) there should be some prep done as far as bevelling the edges. Then we would not require such heat and would likely get less build up above the face of the parent metal. This proceedure though has been done this way for quite some time now and it works, so there would be considerable resistance to change.

Thanks again for the input guys!

Jamie

Not to mention more manhours to prep.

You can remove the excess weld w/a router, fitted w/a notched base. Clamp a 2x4 [on your plank] to keep the router from kicking to 1 side. A router w/a 1/2" collet will allow you to use end mills.

You will probably need to build in a air line to blow on the cutter [for cooling].

Am unsure how wide your weld is or the length,I have used a wood router with a steel cutting end mill (12 mm) for years to remove aluminium weld. The machine is mounted to a frame c/w linear bearings as guides and travels above the weld and can be adjusted up or down via the existing adjusting screw on router. We remove about 10mm in depth at 2mm per pass.The machine is pushed by hand along the bearing rails. You could make the frame as long as you wanted. 20 years and have never had a accident.

Just an update to this... we have been using a slightly modified hand held planer to remove the excess weld now for several months without issue. It works quite well and saves literally hours of grinding.

Hi GroovyCBR,

This is spooky. At about the time you were posting your update on this thread I was sitting in the throne room contemplating life and getting rid of some of yesterdays leftovers, when for some reason your electric planer being used on aluminium popped into my head.

Talk about serendipity. Is that weird or what?

LOL what are the odds?

I thought I'd go back and post an update on it as it seems to be safely doing the job for us here. By doing it like this we save several (2-4) hours of labor per unit... of course the fact that I suggested this and the company saves several thousands of dollars annually, goes completely un-noticed when it comes time for my anual performance review :P JK (just kiddin) on this (just in case the boss reads this)

What made you think of my suggestion of using an electric planer on aluminum, while "dropping some kids off at the pool" anyways?

Hi

• What made you think of my suggestion of using an electric planer on aluminum, while "dropping some kids off at the pool" anyways?

That's the weird part, it just popped into my mind for apparently no reason what so ever. When I was at university studying one of our lecturers introduced us to the subject of serendipity. There is to date no real scientific basis to it but if you go back through history there are a myriad of examples where scientific, mathematic and engineering breakthroughs have occurred simultaneously by two and sometimes more people in total isolation and without any knowledge of the others work.

The only half reasonable explanation is that whatever is discovered is the next logical step in the learning process but the leap in logic is often staggering. For example calculus was independently developed in England and France within a few weeks of each other. Calculus is one of those quantum leaps in logic so why would two people that have never met and don't even know the other exists have the same thought process take place simultaneously. There is either something really strange going on or the process of discovery is far more structured and consists of time based steps that we would have previously thought.

There is an interesting story about calculus and it turns out it was initially developed over 1,500 years earlier than first thought. Evidently Archimedes developed the concept way back around 220 BC. Unfortunately some time during the dark ages the manuscript that detailed his findings was later washed and the paper reused for something completely mundane like a prayer or song book. The original manuscript was not rediscovered until the second half of the 20^th century and they were not able to read all the original text till fairly recently. However, when they finally managed to read it all and reproduce the diagrams they realized that what he was talking about was calculus. That monk that reused the original manuscript put science, mathematics and the human race back nearly two millennia. Just imagine how much more could have been done if we had calculus 2,000 years earlier. My guess is that by now we would at least be at or well on the way to the nearest stars.

• By doing it like this we save several (2-4) hours of labor per unit... of course the fact that I suggested this and the company saves several thousands of dollars annually, goes completely un-noticed

Yep, that's pretty typical. I used to work as a field engineer racing around Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea fixing up control system and PLC disasters. I usually only got a few hours notice to be on a plane and gone for weeks to months on end. The usual scenario was some really expensive production process that was down and that everybody including the pet cat and dog had tried to fix the problem but failed miserably. They only ever bothered to call me in when things like bonuses and financial penalties were at risk and by fixing the problems. By getting the production going I was not only saving them millions of dollars but often earning them millions more in the form of bonuses. Of course the always complained about my expenses and cost of paying me and never thought of sharing the bonuses they achieved due to me fixing the problems. By the way, the problems were often caused by their own stupidity and corner cutting cost saving actions.

No clogging or build up of aluminum...

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