Making accurate square holes

[turbo6justin]

A lot of what I do is automotive related and I find myself making switch pannels fairly often. When picking switches I usually limit myself to round switches because making round holes is easy. Some switches are just not available so I am in need of making square holes. Material is usually 1/8" aluminum so nothing hard to work with. Short of drilling the 4 corners then using a cut off wheel to connect them how are you doing it? The problem with the cut off wheels is on small switches (the current one is .875 x 1.375") you almost have to use a dremmel type wheel which is always a last resort of mine because they **** to work with. A 3" cut off wheel is just too big of a radius so you can't even get through the material before you are past the end of the cut. Then there is the drilled corner problem, that leaves the corner radiused of course instead of a nice square corner. I usually finish these pannels with hand files and you can remove material relatively quick but there has to be a better way. Getting the hole to rough size with a carbide burr works too but again it is a rotating tool so everything is based around a radius again and square holes are streight.

I have a press and punching the holes occured to me but punching dies are not cheap either.

Just looking for ideas here to make smallish square holes accurately.

 

[98TJ]

For 1/8" aluminum a scroll saw with a metal blade should work fine. Would have to follow up with a file.

A carbide cutter in a router and a template for your switch openings would be the fastest option.

 

[chris fresh]

A lot of what I do is automotive related and I find myself making switch pannels fairly often. When picking switches I usually limit myself to round switches because making round holes is easy. Some switches are just not available so I am in need of making square holes. Material is usually 1/8" aluminum so nothing hard to work with. Short of drilling the 4 corners then using a cut off wheel to connect them how are you doing it? The problem with the cut off wheels is on small switches (the current one is .875 x 1.375") you almost have to use a dremmel type wheel which is always a last resort of mine because they **** to work with. A 3" cut off wheel is just too big of a radius so you can't even get through the material before you are past the end of the cut. Then there is the drilled corner problem, that leaves the corner radiused of course instead of a nice square corner. I usually finish these pannels with hand files and you can remove material relatively quick but there has to be a better way. Getting the hole to rough size with a carbide burr works too but again it is a rotating tool so everything is based around a radius again and square holes are streight.

I have a press and punching the holes occured to me but punching dies are not cheap either.

Just looking for ideas here to make smallish square holes accurately.

anything like that i used a jig saw,put a hole in each corner inside of the line by an 1/8th or so,then use the jig to cut hole to hole.maybe a little clean up with a hand file.i'm not a fan of cutting aluminum with any cut off disc i own.might be worth the investment of the die if you made enough of them,or make or have made,your own die for your press.this falls into the category of,you don't need it everyday,but when you do,it's worth it's weight

 

[luvit]

hey turbo,
i've had to make hundreds of cuts like you're describing.
with a steady hand, i pre-drilled each end with the largest bit that would fit in the end of the slot, then i would use an electric jig saw to square-off the holes and cut the longer side lines.
jig saw blades will gum-up and need thrown away, but it was the fastest and easiest solution for all the holes i had to do. -- cleaned-up with a hand file.

 

[Alchymist]

Knockout punches if you have enough work to justify the cost....(they are pricey )

http://www.drillspot.com/hand-tools...-hole-punches/?spc=Item=Square Knockout Punch

 

[iajonesy]

If you are using a high speed rasp or rotary file cover the cutting end with soap or paraffin this will keep the r/f from getting clogged with aluminum. Same goes for sabre saw blades. You could also chain drill the holes. It takes more time and you have a little more clean up work with a file but it is another option.

Mike

 

[MoonRise]

Hmmm, CNC laser or plasma? CNC waterjet?

You can cut them out (jig saw, carbide router bit through a template or mill them out, etc) or get the die set to punch them out on the press or you may be able to hand guide a plasma torch around a template. You may have to smooth or dress the edges/corners.

Hmmm, maybe rought drill out the holes and then final-size/shape them with a broach. Again, you have the $$$ on the broach. You'd have to check on $$$ and other trade-offs for broach-vs-punch die.

Pick what trade-offs you want to deal with. Time, money, speed, accuracy, effort/sweat, etc.

 

[kruegdr]

http://www.polygonsolutions.com/square-rotary-braoch-tools



Well, at least that's the coolest solution

 

[turbo6justin]

I am going to have to give the nod to the waterjet for most over the top way to solve a little problem. I like that one, but when the cost of the switches is a consideration I think the CNC will have to sit on the wish list for a while. I didn't consider the jig saw or scroll saw idea and they both sound pretty good. A while ago I built a table to hold a jigsaw upside down so just the blade sticks through (think router table for a jig saw) that could work pretty well. On the other hand my scroll saw is so horrid to use it is another tool of last resort but I can probably use this to justify at least the harbor freight scroll saw, or a better one if I choose, that has been on the wish list for a while.

I would look more at the knockout punches but the cost is hard to justify for a single use tool, plus picking the right size to work with a variety of hole sizes could be a problem.

Thanks for the great ideas.

 

[Milton Shaw]

You might try one of the manual nibblers. They are hand held and go through a hole in the workpiece and then you can nibble any shape you want too. The air or electric nibbler's are probably too fast for what you are doing.

 

[spongerich]

Just pick up a square drill bit.

They're usually next to the left handed metric adjustable wrenches.

 

[caper150]

Knockout punches if you have enough work to justify the cost....(they are pricey )

http://www.drillspot.com/hand-tools...-hole-punches/?spc=Item=Square Knockout Punch

Holy ****

I am in the same boat as you, I just drill out the corners and use and air saw then file to fit, takes too long though.

 

[hunter1151]

Here ya go..........there is an old tool, but I'm sorry I can't remember the name. But this video shows you how some of them work.

 

[turbo6justin]

Hey, if we were talking wood a square bit would be possible a'la a mortesing bit. It's weird I will go a while without even thinking about one then it seems like that is all I am doing for a week. It can take a while to do a 4 or 6 switch pannel. But with my frequency it's hard to justify the cost of something specific for the job.

I can understand why they are pricy to buy though, either the tooling or the time is expensive.

 

[rockchucker]

hey turbo,
i've had to make hundreds of cuts like you're describing.
with a steady hand, i pre-drilled each end with the largest bit that would fit in the end of the slot, then i would use an electric jig saw to square-off the holes and cut the longer side lines.
jig saw blades will gum-up and need thrown away, but it was the fastest and easiest solution for all the holes i had to do. -- cleaned-up with a hand file.

My grandfather had a Square Bit for drilling holes in hundreds of sheets of Paper. Much like the Wood Square Bits you see with a Drill in the Center and a Square Cutting Blade around it. Wouldn't work for Metal.

I usually use a Drill Bit the size of the width of the Hole and drill at the ends then cut the rest out with a Jig Saw. As depicted above.

 

[turbo6justin]

Here ya go..........there is an old tool, but I'm sorry I can't remember the name. But this video shows you how some of them work.

That is cool the Vika attachment, took a second to visualize how that works. Now I want to see one for rectangles.

 

[rockchucker]

That is the Witches *** right there!

 

[jlckmj]

Try Watec, they are normally wholesale so give them a business name when you order.

Below I have a link to their switch page, I did a bus conversion and needed 50-60 switches so I used them exclusively and they worked great.

http://order.waytekwire.com/scategory2/M50/260/200/Carling Contura Rocker Switch/Switches/


the rocker switches are great, then you can use the mounting brackets to set them in. You can buy the ends and the center sections, and can gang as many as you want together. That way you only have to make one large hole for a group of them, or one small hole for a single.

Jim

 

[turbo6justin]

I will mention it in here in case anyone looks through this in the future. I have been using Del City for years for switches, harnesses, wire loom is real reasonable, crimp ends (the ones that are not common at a local store) etc. Occasionally they have a min order price ($25-50) and some things have min order quantities but they are great to deal with. Most times it ships within 24 hours and for me is usually on my doorstep the afternoon after I order.

I highly recommend getting their catalog and using them if you are into these types of things.

http://www.delcity.net/

 

[gorilla]

If you don't have enough work to justify a mill or knock out punches you might consider an X-Y table for the drill press that I'm assuming you have. You could use a drill bit to remove the majority of the metal and then machine the edges with a 1/16" 2 flute end mill. When you need a square hole to fit a square object and you don't want to file the corners square you can run your end mill .010 past the end of the corner in both directions to provide a relief for the square corner of thee part.

 

[scott37300]

A lot of what I do is automotive related and I find myself making switch pannels fairly often.

If you are making a bunch of them then a greenlee knockout punch is what you need. I have the hydralic set of round punches and love them. I end up using them way more than I thought I would. If you are doing even a few panels they will pay for themselfs real quick when it will take only a couple minutes per hole.

 

[nhmercracer]

I have used drill and a nibbler to create some rectangular holes for those rocker switches. Not a problem for one or two, but I wouldn't want to do any more than that in this way.