New use for shaper?

[coldte]

Last evening i went round to an old friends house only to find he was in the workshop ,on entering he was using the hand operated shaper the difference was it had been modified to accept a roto-zip tool by installing an extra hole in the clapper assy and mounting to it a bracket to hold the tool,still used the fine down feed,The item he was maching was a block of aluminium and the tool cutter was a standard router bit .The finish was very good and he showed me different cuts with the various types of cutters as long as you dont expect miracles it would be a different approach to some jobs , I was quite impressed , what do you think?

coldte

 

[woodknack]

th_wwp

 

[coldte]

th_wwp

Sorry i only visit occasionally and my camera is with the daughter at the moment but i will try and get it back!
coldte

 

[Diy89]

I have always wondered if one could cut soft metals with router type bits. If they are carbide, why not? I have cut plate aluminum with my skill saw, although the racket it made brought out my neighbors!
My question is, are there different levels (hardness maybe?) of carbide cutters?

 

[vlmarshall]

I've used a carbide 45degree cutter with guide bearing, in a hand-held router, to chamfer the back side of some plates at work that I didn't want or need to set up for a second machine operation. It cut quite well, and easily.

 

[hammers-n-nails]

im not a metals expert but im pretty sure that carbide for wood is not the same, or there is just not enough support behind the cutting edge to cut steel without chipping. if you hit a soft nail with a carbide router bit its probably going to make a dull spot, you can usually get away with cutting through a few nails with a saw without much problem but if you hit a hard screw like a deck screw theres going to be some teeth break off. ive never delt with any aluminum in this way but i can see how that would be totally possible, probably not real good for the bits i cant imagine them cutting wood well afterwards.

vernon just posted ahead of me- in aluminum verenon?

 

[vlmarshall]

Oh, yeah, in aluminum. ;D

 

[IronHorse]

I have used a cheap carbide wood router bit to chamfer some aluminum plate. It worked good, but I took light cuts.

 

[Cedge]

I use them on aluminum quite often, even up to cutting with a 1/2 inch radius bit. No problems if you don't get carried away. I've even managed success with router bits for light cuts on brass.
Steve