Cutting stainless steel sheet: Any advice?

[69427]

Well, lucked into a scrap sheet of .040" titanium that a good friend had left over from a former work project. Enough sheet area to make several caliper pad insulator shims. I currently have no good idea of the magnitude of challenge it will be to cut out and drill these shims.

Depending on which thermal conductivity chart one sees on the interwebs, there doesn't seem to be much difference in the insulating capabilities of titanium versus stainless steel, but the increased thickness (+14%) of the titanium shims (versus the .035" stainless shims above) should reduce the heat flow into the caliper pistons, and what the heck, titanium sounds a lot more exotic than stainless steel.

 

[69427]

Well, the titanium experience went better than expected. I was able to use some tin snips to make the rough shape cut out, and then used my bench grinder to trim everything to the size I needed (the bright sparks were amusing to watch), and the cotter pin retention holes drilled out pretty easily with some extra pressure and cutting oil. Made four of the shims. While not big numbers in the absolute sense, these .040" Ti shims are noticeably lighter than the .035" SS shims.

 

[phantomjock]

With those sparks, and swarf from grinding - careful for a thermite "situation."
A friend told me he had a fire on his plasma rig. Lucky he got it out and saved the shop.

Cheers - Jim