Aluminium sheet suppliers and/or cutting services?
 

Hi everyone,

Recently I've been looking to make a custom chassis plate for my DEX210 - I've got a nose plate from the Exotek carbon chassis kit, so I don't need a kickup.

So I started looking for a company who could cut a plate for me in aluminium, but 2.5mm is a bit of an odd thickness to stock for cutting services. So plan B is to supply your own sheet of material... turns out that's quite difficult too.

Now I can take the easy way out and go to Fibre Lyte for a nice carbon example. However, for the bumpy tracks I run on I found the weight of the DEX210 helps a lot to make it stable. In other words, ideally I'd need an alu plate.

So the question that I have to you is:
Does anyone know a place (preferably in Western Europe) where I can have a chassis plate of 2.5mm alu cut? (In 7075-T6, 6061-T6 or 6082-T6 alloy - unless someone has a suitable alternative alloy for these).

Thanks in advance for your help :)

Hello,

You could try -

http://www.dmslaserprofiles.co.uk/

or

http://cirrus-laser.co.uk/

I use both of these companies for various one off prototypes and production batch items, might be worth contacting them and see what they say?

Are you sure 2.5 mm is what you want? Seems a bit thin to me.
Maybe you could go for 4mm fibegerglass enforced epoxy (GF10).
That 'd make it a bit heavier than 2.5mm carbon and nearly as stiff. If it does give some flex, at least it will get back to flat; unlike aluminium

@maxxjod: Thanks for the links, I'll contact them :)

@mr.ed: Pretty much all aluminium chassis' on 1/10 buggies are 2.5mm - some are even 2.0mm (like on the Schumacher K1), and the same counts for carbon. The only car known to me to buckle alu chassis' is the Centro (C4.1) - not surprisingly when you don't have sidepods or another type of bracing to restrict longitudinal flex.

I'm well aware Aluminium doesn't work for all parts on the car - such as suspension arms and shock towers - but for this job I think the specific alloy+hardening combinations are an excellent choice: It is way stronger than Carbon Fibre or GF (this refers to strength, not it's ability to flex), it puts weight low down in and close to the centerline of the car - the weight helps calm the car down, the position of the weight is helpful for the CoG and prevents the necessity of stuffing adhesive weights all over your car.

Have you tried the nearest equivalent imperial or gauge thickness?
Think 10AWG sheet is just over 2.5mm and 3/32 or 7/64 sit either side of 2.5mm.

We used to do this a lot in the aero industry. Manipulate the tolerance band so we could use either imperial or metric sheets......... depending on which was cheaper.