Cutting Aluminum on a table saw

[Dale Coons]

OK to do this with a carbide blade? I need to cut several 1 1/2" long pieces of 1/8 thick x 1 inch wide stock. Seems like it ought to be ok, but thought I'd check it out first.

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[Matt Day]

Yup, just use a beater blade.

[Martin Wasner]

I do it all the time. Works pretty well.

[Bill Ryall]

Wear ear protection.

[Myk Rian]

Use a band saw.

[Joe Spear]

I use a Freud non-ferrous blade to cut aluminum. It has a lot of teeth, but any good crosscut cut blade should work. Just be careful about handling the material. There will be little aluminum shavings everywhere and maybe sharp slivers clinging to the stock. Wood splinters are bad enough, but aluminum ones are several steps worse.

[Jerome Stanek]

I would use a miter saw for that

[Lee Schierer]

You can, but...

Wear ear protection, eye protection and gloves. The metal sawdust is really hot and it sticks to everything and can stick to the saw teeth.

[Jim Finn]

I would use tin snips or hack saw to cut 1/8" aluminum.

[Bill Stephenson]

I needed to cut the aluminum track for my track saw,I purchase a non-ferrous blade from Amazon for $17.00 and it worked like a charm. Just be careful of the flying chips.

[Ole Anderson]

Ideally use a carbide blade with a negative hook and plenty of teeth on a miter saw. But a TS will work fine too. Practically, any blade will do the trick for a few cuts of material that small. Hit the teeth with WD40 first to reduce aluminum sticking to the teeth. Aluminum generally won't dull the teeth, no need to use a beater blade. Coming from someone that has processed thousands of pounds of aluminum in my shop cutting everything from 1" x 1/8" stock to solid 2.5" round 6061-t6 with a 10" carbide blade on a chop saw.

[Jerome Stanek]

I use wax on my blades when I cut aluminum. I used to have to trim out drug stores with extruded aluminum at the ceiling and on top of the wall fixture so I cut a lot of it.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

If you don't have a non ferrous blade, a blade with a triple chip grind is the next best thing.

If it's a harder aluminum like 6061-T6, you can usually cut id with no lubricants. The softer grades are the ones that can cause problems, gumming up and building up on the teeth.

[Keith Weber]

I'll highlight a few important things mentioned above, plus add a couple of points:

1. Wear ear protection.

2. Use WD-40 as a lubricant. I buy it by the gallon and use it in a spray bottle to mill Al in my little machine shop. If you don't, the melted aluminum will re-weld itself to the teeth on your blade, which will effectively make your blade act dull, which will cause heat build-up, which leads to more melting,...

3. Use a blade with lots of teeth, and go slower than you would for wood. Using a rip blade and too fast of a feed rate could replicate a Sawstop firing (no Sawstop needed) on thicker pieces of Al. You're probably not going to do that with 1/8" Al, but just be aware.

4. Speaking of Sawstops... if you have one of those, disable the firing mechanism if you're going to cut aluminum (or at least film yourself with a high-speed camera, so we can see the slow-motion video of your facial expression when the blade hits the Aluminum.)

[TIM CARBAUGH]

Yep. Do it all the time. I have found higher teeth blades work better and I use wax for lubrication. It will quiet the cut and not have any aluminum stick too the teeth. The carrier I made for my BGE was cut almost entirely on my TS.
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