Stainless... harder to work with?

[DickDV]

Having worked extensively with 300 series stainless (the enclosure is most likely 302 or 304 stainless), the most important consideration when machining is to keep a steady fairly-aggressive feed rate.

300 series stainless work-hardens so, if you don't keep feeding your drill bit or other tooling, the metal hardens directly under the tool contact point and you will have a really tough time breaking through. The general idea is to cut off enough metal in each pass so you stay under the surface hardening. This usually means about .030" per pass---not an easy thing to gage if you are hand drilling. Far better to use a drill press and high tool pressure.

 

[IO_Rack]

Fyi

not sure if WD40 is available in the states?

I'll bet you'll find this stuff in just about every home, garage, and shop in the states.

 

[Atlascycle]

I'll bet you'll find this stuff in just about every home, garage, and shop in the states.

Not in my garage I hate the stuff

 

[Alan Case]

As someone mentioned earlier, WATER and lots of it. Find somewhere where you can run water over the area being drilled, cut or holesawed. If you can keep the heat out of the contact area, then cheap drills will last a long time. Before you scoff at this method, take a peice outside, run the hose over it and see how many holes you can drill with a battery drill and one 3/16 drill bit. You will be surprised.
Regards Alan Case

 

[gas]

Stainless is easy to work with if you understand how.
Use sharp tools.
Use the correct speed for the tool. LOOK UP THE SPEED
Maintain pressure when drilling. The material will work harden under the tool when you release pressure.
Use coolant correctly.
Follow the directions of the punch manufacturer.

If all else fails read the directions.

 

[jimpad]

How about using a nibbler to cut out for the OUI? Any opinions?

 

[ToddM]

Hi Jimpad....Never used a nibbler to cut the OUI {I work in a dye house, so I've cut a bunch of panels over the years} but a sawz all works just fine, just cut like these other guys say ,SLOW and LOTS of LUBRICANT. We use either WD40 or Kano Kroil. I prefer the Kroil, it seems to cool better. http://www.kanolabs.com/home.html

Later...Todd.

P.S. Keep lots of blades if you cut a lot of holes.