At 04:25 PM 4/5/2012, Marc Nicholas wrote: >Do either yourself or Matt mill aluminum? (Mill, not engrave...) We do mostly plastic but do mill Hammond die-cast enclosures for a=20 couple of products. My buddy who first got the machine going used it to mill steel rack=20 ears using this exact setup but I do recall that it was pretty=20 painful - it took a long time to mill 11 holes, ranging from 15/16"=20 diameter (Neutrik panel mount XLR connector) down to 9/64" (enclosure=20 mounting holes). There were a couple of rectangular and square holes=20 (panel-mount switch & square actuator for PCB-mount push-button switch). Doing it by hand was not an option - tolerances were extremely tight=20 and it just didn't seem feasible to get that kind of accuracy. It=20 took him a day to machine 20 units and I considered that to be a=20 bargain at the time. Cut-2D makes milling aluminum easy - just set the incremental depth=20 increase to a nice, small number. That keeps the travel speed fast=20 and it takes only a couple of minutes to mill a bunch of holes in an=20 enclosure. It takes almost as long to mount and dismount the=20 enclosure as it does to mill it. I'm using carbide spiral up-cut milling bits 3/32" diameter that I=20 purchase from Princess Auto here in Canada - they sell a small box=20 containing 9 bits for about $7 on sale. I grab several boxes each=20 time they become available. I've also got a bunch of chip-breaker=20 bits designed for milling plastic that I purchased from eBay - they=20 work as intended. But I find that the spiral up-cut bits seem to=20 work better in plastic as well. dwayne --=20 Dwayne Reid Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd Edmonton, AB, CANADA (780) 489-3199 voice (780) 487-6397 fax www.trinity-electronics.com Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .