Aluminum Plaque finished

[laconcepts]

I finished the plaque today. It is apprx. 12.5 tall and 15. Long.
The aluminum is 1/2" thick and inlaid .200 into a piece of Walnut.
As a metal worker by trade and not much of a woodworker, it is nice to mix it up a bit.
I love the look of the brushed/satin finish aluminum against the wood.
Originally I was going to waterjet a 1/4" brass Air Force logo and inlay it into the aluminum slightly but our Omax is down for filters.
It should be up and running soon and hope to waterjet a simple Easel from .125 aluminum before we give it to the Commander.
Ive made some small ones and are pretty cool. Drawn in Aspire and could also be routed with some minor changes. Cut flat and make a few vise bends and....ta da you have an easel. Lol.

Thanks for looking,
Kelly

[armbrusterco]

Beautifully done!

[tonydude919]

Very impressive, like the way it came out.

Tony

[calgrdnr]

Kelly ,
You never cease to amaze me .

thanks for posting all of your art my fav still the A10 related Art Just Cuz


Kent

[pops1964]

Nice work I really like aluminium , the detail and colors are great . Pop's

[laconcepts]

Thank you all for the comments. They are certainly appreciated.

Kent,
One of my next projects will be to make a lazy susan designed to look like the end of then A10 Gatlin gun. It will hold 7 shot glasses made from spent 30mm casings. Behind it will be a 12"-ish section of the barrel breach with a cutaway to see a full 30mm round. (Machine fake tip naturally)

Thank you all again,
Kelly

[martin54]

Well that is certainly something for me to try & aspire to, thanks for posting.

[Arbo]

Some seriously nice work.

[Timvmax]

Another beautiful piece, you certainly look after the important guys there

[laconcepts]

Thank you again for the comments. It is very humbling considering the level of creativity and skill that I see here as I browse through everyones
projects.

Timvmax--I try to take care of people when I can. As a supervisor it doesnt allow me much time to do so.. Most of the time it helps me to have some kind of standard plaque or something like that. I can change the text or clipart etc etc and cut it again. Most of the time it is for the workers and not the command structure. I have 3 of my standard plaques to make for my troops leaving soon.

Kelly

[mtylerfl]

Beautiful work! I love the combination of wood and metal.

[ohiococonut]

Excellent work!

[Len-Tikular]

I finished the plaque today. It is apprx. 12.5 tall and 15. Long.
The aluminum is 1/2" thick and inlaid .200 into a piece of Walnut.
As a metal worker by trade and not much of a woodworker, it is nice to mix it up a bit.
I love the look of the brushed/satin finish aluminum against the wood.
Originally I was going to waterjet a 1/4" brass Air Force logo and inlay it into the aluminum slightly but our Omax is down for filters.
It should be up and running soon and hope to waterjet a simple Easel from .125 aluminum before we give it to the Commander.
Ive made some small ones and are pretty cool. Drawn in Aspire and could also be routed with some minor changes. Cut flat and make a few vise bends and....ta da you have an easel. Lol.

Thanks for looking,
Kelly

Fantastic work Kelly,
Can I ask you what bit did you use for the 1/2" profile on your alumininium.
End mill or Slot mill
2 flute or 3 flute
Spindle speed
Inch/Min cut speed
Depth of each pass
Any coolant used.
Anything I missed.
Again a great job.

Many thanks

George

[laconcepts]

George,
Thank you for your comments.
I apologize for the late reply. I haven't been on the forum as often lately.
I used a 1/4" 2 flute end mill at about 26-30 IPM and .125 depth of cut. Spindle speed was around 6500 RPM. This cutter wasn't TIN coated and tended to scream a bit at higher rpms. Increased feed rate did nothing for it but reduced RPMs was the ticket. This machine has flood coolant which is a big plus naturally. Setup is always the key in any machining as I'm sure you know. I can machine the same part and use different clamps or different sacrificial material underneath and have different results in surface finish or noise.
I will add that I have been adding tabs and leaving a .015 allowance then, I duplicate the toolpath in order to keep my tab positions and run a full depth pass with zero offset. This helps a lot and takes out all the lines of the individual pass depths. I have been doing this on my wood projects as well and takes out a lot of sanding.

I hope this helps sir,
Thank you,
Kelly