Advice for cutting 3/16 aluminum parts

[Bryan Cotton]

Aluminum is the wood of metals. If a tool works on wood it will probably work on aluminum. Routers are awesome. I used a corner rounding bit on the outside corner of the inner nested extrusion of my hummelbird and it flew through it. Made a heck of a mess and eye protection was beyond mandatory. Also bring a change of clothes/shoes to the shop else your wife will kill you.

[falvarez]

I tried Steve's comment about using a wood plane on some .025 sheet and all I can say is wow...it worked great!

I was cutting out my wing skins and due to their size I left about 1/16 to 1/8 gap to the cut line. I cleaned up the first skin using the file and it took a couple hours and lots of sweat equity...with six skins I figured there had to be a better way so I tried the wood plane. It took the excess metal down to the cut line in just a couple minutes with minimal effort.

Thanks for the suggestion Steve...