Diy alu.strip cutter?

[edsmith]

After looking at the video Yonky posted, I was thinking it should not be too hard to make a simple hand operated one, the cutter is got me stumped. any ideas on how to make a cutter that cuts as you pull a alu. sheet across it? the rest would be easy. thanks guys

[arjacobson]

Ed I was looking into this also. I was thinking along the lines of a tubing cutter wheel and a reverse die below it. In the water main industry they have large hand pipe cutters for 6-12" main. Those wheels are roughly 1-1/4 in dia. One of those might work. I was going to design mine to just cut off the scrap edge after being punched. Keep me informed on your progress. BTW the freechex3 designed tooling I built is the cats meow.. Fantastic design!!!

[arjacobson]

Another thing to look into is a guitar fret bender. I will have to dig mine out. They self feed the fret wire. Pretty simple design really.

[edsmith]

thanks for the idea, I down loaded a article on making a fret bender, looks like it may be the way to go.:goodpost:

[arjacobson]

sounds good-let me know what you come up with!

[Norbrat]

We use a tool known as a "Swage Jenny" to roll profiles in tubes and sheetmetal, etc.

Google search for images.

[FrankG]

Something similar to an electric can opener If you could guide the sheeting through should work to cut strips.

[edsmith]

I cobbled a crude one today to see if my idea would work, it cut the alu. easy, some bugs to work out. I used 2 wheels off a vaccum cleaner, they are plastic with a rubber tire, for the cutter I used a cutter off a fiscars paper cutter, it is a wheel type cutter, the cutter is 1 3/4" in dia. it is .012" thick. I put the 2 wheels together on a piece of all thread, mounted the cutter on a piece of all thread, drilled a hole in a piece of 1/4" steel plate, mounted the wheels on it, drilled another hole for the cutter, I made the hole for it so the edge of the cutter would be about 3/16" in between the two wheels.I thought by turning the wheels the alu. would feed easy, nope, could not feed with the wheels, so I tried turning the cutter, it fed the alu. easy. the cut has a lip on it from the wheels spreading. I am going to make some metal wheels in the next few days when I get a chance, I will use some 7/8" alu. bar stock I have.I am making this gismo out of stuff I have in the shop, I can't spend any money on it.( i'm broke). I will get some photos as soon as I can. so far it looks doable.

[yonky]

I admire all of your ideas here but when you have made your cutter you would still only be able to cut 2-3 feet at a time,with A,very sharp,burred edges. b,the size will vary also.
for the cost of the flashing (which you have to have) you could just buy the coil to the exact width/length for around the same cost.
unless i have missed something here?
please enlighten me,after all im just a limey! ian

[edsmith]

Yonky, I think I can get this to cut clean, I can make it to cut very long strips, but all I want it to do is cut strips 1 to 2 foot long, I have several coils of 4" wide alu. all ready, and some flat stock. not much point to buying more. right now this is at the fooling around stage, the reasion I do this is because I can.if I needed alu. I would order the coils. that is the way to go.

[FrankG]

For 1 foot strips , wouldnt a old style paper cutter work ? The big blade type ?

[edsmith]

I have a paper cutter, I hate using a paper cutter,rather chew the strips off.:bigsmyl2:

[lcclower]

I have a paper cutter, I got it for 50 cents at a garage sale, I cut PP strips on it and I'm not about to mess it up on metal strips.
Look at aviation snips, they have very small serrations so the aluminum doesn't slide out away from the junction of the blades while cutting.
Maybe you could have a sharpened washer running against steel plate with a really square edge, and have a wide powered rubber/plastic wheel with substantial down pressure to drag the aluminum through the cutter?

[FrankG]

Before retiring we had a huge cutter like a paper cutter we made from a lathe blade ( veneer lathe blade) .We cut the aluminum sheathing for covering insulation with it . It was quite sharp and the edge left on aluminum from being cut could and would cut your hands .

[Springfield]

A razor knife cuts mine just fine.

[VHoward]

I use a paper cutter just fine. Brass, aluminum and copper. Were not talking very thick material here. The paper cutter cuts paper just fine also.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

strips!

[garandsrus]

I wonder how a laminate slitter would work. I used one recently for cutting laminate and it was an amazing tool. It did a great job on the laminate and I would think that thin aluminum would be even easier to cut.

Here's a video of a guy using one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTgxDlgOXLc

John

[little willie]

My wife has a fabric cutter she bought at Wal-Mart. It looks very much like a pizza cutter.

While I have not used it to cut aluminum, we HAVE used it t cut a WHOLE LOT of .001 to .004 steel shim stock. It does a very clean job and the wheels last a LONG time. The replacement wheels can be purchased by themselves, in case you wanted to make a fixture to just hold the blade down (maybe spring loaded) and have a fence to guide the material.

little willie

[skeet1]

I got a cheap paper cutter from Harbor Freight and it works just fine.

Ken

[edsmith]

little willie, thanks, I will check it out.