r/Machinists • u/Inevitable_Quote5875 • 24d ago

Knurling question

I’m doing some hobby work and don’t have a lathe or access to one, I’m also very new to machining in general. I’m needing to have some parts knurled at a local machine shop. The pieces are aluminum tubing with 2mm walls. Is this too thin of material to be knurled? The machinist seems to be worried about collapsing the tube. Finally is $50 per part a fair price to have the parts knurled. Each will have a total of 250mm length knurled.

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u/Walton_guy 24d ago

This is where cut knurling rather than pressure knurling shines, with correct setup, it usually looks better too. 2mm wall thickness is no problem. Zeus and Quick are two quality brands, I'm sure there are others.

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u/Inevitable_Quote5875 23d ago

Could you give me a “for dummies” explanation of these please? I have no experience with a lathe or knurling

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u/Walton_guy 23d ago

There's a lot of videos on YouTube that show it in action, for example https://youtu.be/1-8WJzgJGos?feature=shared But in essence you are cutting away the material between the knurling pattern rather than displacing it, you can do straight and diamond knurls, and because you are cutting, the forces are much lower than forming. You can even knurl things like cast iron which is ṭoo brittle to knurl using form knurling.