A nice "low tooth" carbide ripping blade is great (and usually the cheapest blade you can get)

It also works great on a miter(chop) saw with a carbide ripping blade, for the smaller pieces and when you need nice square or angled cuts.

Using a router with decent wood bits, you can get very nice round overs or pockets that would be very difficult any other way.

Definitely worthy of a post if others aren't aware how nice it cuts with your average wood working tools.

 

I cut thu a 30lb heatsink for the zilla with a skil saw. No complaints.
alum is very soft...

 

Not all Aluminum is soft. I ruined a bunch of metal cutting drill bits trying to drill a few holes in some aircraft aluminum I bought at Boeing Surplus. I would test the hardness with a file before I tried cutting it with a table saw.

 

The skil saw had a metal-cutting blade from a grinder, if that helps. I could touch the aluminum right after cutting. but that is the job of a heatsink...

 

On the mention of the word 'Grinder' note that you should never use an abrasive wheel on aluminium as the metal gets ground into the wheel and then expands with heat causing the wheel to explode.

 

yep, discovered this years back. unlike wood though, the saw can throw some pretty dangerous shrapnel, so be careful, I wear my welding helmet when cutting alum on the tablesaw.

When I picked up my battery "baskets" from my local weld shop, I mentioned how difficult it is to cut 1/2 inch thick 6061 aluminum plate.

My guy told me to wax up the sides of my table saw blade and run it through

Well, we decided that we needed to trim our motor plate so we set the fence on the table saw, waxed the blade a little and ran the plate through like a piece of plywood!

It went as smooth as butter. No blade change. Same old blade that has been on my saw for years.

There's a tip for you guys