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I know a lot of people use the tin snips or the powered ones for the wing ribs, but is it possible to use a jig saw to do the rough cutting? Or is that just a bad idea.
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Give it a try. I would think a jig saw would be not as friendly as power or hand snips. The cleanest cut would be with a fine tooth blade where only a few saw teeth will be engaged with the metal to take all the wear. Blades may be short lived. Rub the blade with a bar of soap occasionally to cut easier. Soap prevents the aluminum from filling the valleys of teeth to render the blade useless. Care would have to be taken that the cuttings do not get between the bottom of the saw & the metal to mark it up. The edges will be rough but they will be routered off.
We cut ours with a 60 year old pair of tinners snips. They used to use good metal in the blades as old snips cut very nice. We picked up a couple more good snips at garage sales for about $5. If you have the hand strength the snips are effective and power ones are not that expensive. Hand snips have good control and the large ones will leave good edges if used with care.
This is the new version of the size we used for roughing. We used the std aviation snips occasionally but not as much as the tinners.
http://www.wisstool.com/product/dsp_...c=037103213938
Someone recommended this and it was good to see the correct use of the different snips.
all the bestLast edited by Glenn Patterson; 07-29-2016, 08:45 AM. -
I took the time to make wood templates for each rib.
I then cut the aluminum blanks for each rib with a foot sheer. Each rib blank had 2 locating holes for 3/16 dowel pins.
With this tooling I was able to finish cut ribs 3 at a time in just a few minutes using a router. That included lightening holes as well. And each rib type was identical to all the ribs of that type.
I think that I cut the time to cut the ribs out by way more time than I spent making the tooling.Comment
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Here is pictures of the tooling I used to cut and flange my ribs.
With these tooling I cut all the ribs out with a router.
The mostly white rib is the forming tool to do the flanges. I had a print made from the Mylar drawing and glued that to the wood to make the rib forming tool. I used that tool to make the pattern for cutting the ribs. That is the tool with the holes that is shaped like the rib but wider. The thin bits of plywood were covers that I placed over the aluminum to protect the rib from being scratched during the routing process.
I made similar tooling to do the flaps and ailerons. The aileron tooling is shown.You do not have permission to view this gallery.
This gallery has 1 photos.Comment
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Going to give the jig saw a try for the rough cutting and going to use a router for final shaping. Planning on starting that next week.Comment
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You might try a circular saw. The jig saw may tend to bind up on the chips.Originally posted by Dlarabee View PostComment
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Looks like a really good tool for sheet aluminum and composites as well. Just might order one.Originally posted by Zzz View Post
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I bought that 2" circular saw and tried it out tonight. It actually does a really nice job. It's very low blade RPM with a fine tooth blade. It has an adjustable penetration so you can try to maximize the number of teeth engaging the cut. I only wish it was electric. I'm not a huge fan of air tools, though I have plenty.
It might be better than snips. There are so little serrations like snips leave, but it's a little harder to follow a line and the chips can insure where you're going.
Here's a sample pic. Download and zoom in.
Last edited by Zzz; 08-10-2016, 11:56 PM.Comment
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Started cutting out the pieces today with a 24 teeth jig saw blade worked great no rough spots.Comment
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