Aluminium grade for front panels.

I'm looking to source side cheeks for my eztube mixer project locally,  one of the supplier asked me what aluminium grade i wanted.
I'm clueless regarding this, i usually have my panels done by Frank and front panel design. I found some data on the FPD website and it says they use AA 5005 aluminum alloy. I was wondering if someone knows anything about this and can advise me.

Thanks in advance!

Pierre

If you are receiving a finished panel it doesn't much matter. Some alloys are designed for easy machining. Some are optimized for other things like welding. All of them will be fine. Rod, bar and angle stock usually comes in 6061 but aluminum plate usually is 5052 from the supplier I use. I don't know why. I haven't really noticed much of a difference between them for anything I do.

Maybe I'm missing something though. I'm no expert.

Gold said:

If you are receiving a finished panel it doesn't much matter. Some alloys are designed for easy machining. Some are optimized for other things like welding. All of them will be fine. Rod, bar and angle stock usually comes in 6061 but aluminum plate usually is 5052 from the supplier I use. I don't know why. I haven't really noticed much of a difference between them for anything I do.

Maybe I'm missing something though. I'm no expert.

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Thanks a lot Paul!

What paul said is correct. Just for reference:

6061 T6    most common heat treatable alloy

6063 T6    heat treatable alloy often used for extrusions

5051 H32 non heat treatable alloy with good bending properties and excellent anodizing quality

That being said we use a lot of MIC-6 in the workshop...it's a non warping cast alloy with much better
machining qualities than the above. Being cast, you won't find it in sheet form . But for non structural
things it's the first choice in the shop since it can be sawn, drilled, and milled much more easily.
It's not gummy like the above alloys.
A bonus is it's precision blanchard ground, accurate to 0.001" in thickness.

Les

Different nomenclature over here.
Most used in electronic contruction:
AGS (6060) is used for decoration, takes beautifully anodization, but terribly gummy, can be punched but milling/drilling is a PITN.
AG3 (5754) is best for fabricating enclosures, anodizes well, takes milling/drilling as well as punching, can be bent.
AU4G (2017A) contents copper, very strong, cannot be bent, hard to punched, does not take anodization well but milling/drilling is a breeze.

I'm machining 5083 alloy in my little CNC and the properties seems good, not  gummy at all, little chips...

I can't tell about anodizing, I'll try to anodize a piece in a few weeks.

It has a (scratched now) mirror finishing on one side, I'm thinking in polish it and try a shiny mirror finish.

dirtyhanfri said:

I'm machining 5083 alloy in my little CNC and the properties seems good, not  gummy at all, little chips...

I can't tell about anodizing, I'll try to anodize a piece in a few weeks.

It has a (scratched now) mirror finishing on one side, I'm thinking in polish it and try a shiny mirror finish.

Click to expand...

Used to be called AG4 here, excellent for polished finish but anodization is not so good.
It's not laminated, it's poured then milled/sawn.

Actually my vendor told me it's ok for decorative anodising, not so good for protective anodising.

I'm gonna try to anodise in a few weeks, just have to finish muy house move and I can start a new journey, will report results then. I think this alloy is widely available so it could help someone.