RE: [ATM] Cutting thread in aluminium

["Gregg Swanson" <gswanson@microsoft.com>]

I'm not sure that alcohol is a good cutting fluid...

Make sure that the TAP is square to the hole; how are you doing that?

How did you drill the holes, did you use a drill press? Do you have holes that are square to material?

You may want to make a small fixture that helps you keep the tap square to the hole...

Gregg

-----Original Message-----
From: atm-bounces@atmlist.net [mailto:atm-bounces@atmlist.net] On Behalf Of Göran Hosinsky
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 12:08 PM
To: atm@atmlist.net
Subject: [ATM] Cutting thread in aluminium

Is there any special trick to cutting threads in aluminium?
I was cutting a M5 thread by hand in a 15 mm thick piece of
aluminium, unknown type, when the tap (tap no 1 in a three
tap set) sized up and broke. I was pouring alcohol over the
cutting.

At my second try, with a new tap, I managed to back out again
when it began to stick. I then drilled up the hole to a bigger
diameter and found to my surprise, that the drill had difficulties
to go through the threaded part of the hole, it was like the
aluminium had been hardened at that point.

Any advice would be welcome as I have quite a few holes that
I want to put thread in.

Goran, La Palma
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