Making square holes in enclosures

[Geiri]

Does anyone have any idea how you'd make square holes in enclosures? There's obviously no drilling method for that so I'm open for suggestions.

[TheMajor]

In fact, there are drill bits which make square holes. >>Click<< But I dont know where to buy this. I personally drill small holes at the outline of the square and do the rest with a file. An other way would be to use a router.

[GoranP]

A good scrollsaw with a good carbide blade should be able to cut aluminum that thick... you just need to go reeeeeeal slow and mind the heat.

[Yehudi]

If you happen to have access to some Mould machines you could try: regular CNC - being the corners of the square not 90º perfect angle, but with the radius of the last drill that you used. If it's a big hole, you can commit to have something like a 1mm round corners, Forget it if it's a very small hole!
Now the perfect tool for the job is: Spark erosion machine, you can Google it, basically they carve (with a CNC) whatever you want in graphite and that will be the template ( a bit like a stamper) then it's electricity, bla, bla, bla. So... for a square you'd only need a cubic stick of graphite and a Spark erosion machine (eheheh - easier said, than done! - My reahrsal room is in a mould factory and I allways think of making this to when I lokk to theese machines, but somehow never happened). Hope that all this talk helped somehow!
Cheers
PS - here's a pic of the Machined graphite:
 

[Beaker]

Hi Geiri,
is this request for something specific, or are you "just wondering".

As already stated, you can drill a square hole into something, and a spark eroder is your ideal choice. However, I doubt that there are many (if any?) spark eroders in Iceland. It's slow and very expensive anyway (I worked spark eroders and their even fancier cousins wire eroders for many years.)

So as someone with thirty years toolmaking experience, tell me what you need to do, and I will tell you the best way to go about doing it. With a little practice you can make perfect precision square holes, using nothing more than a pillar drill, the right drills, the right files, and a little patience.

[GoranP]

Alright, I'd like to make a perfect little square hole for fitting an lcd display flush into a hammond enclosure. What's the best way to go about it?

[stringfellow_Hawke]

Most of these displays have a little overhang. So, you can do what we call dogearing the corners. Best way to do this is to drill a small hole at each of the four corners and then saw out the square or rectangle or whatever. The overlay on the display will cover up the holes you drilled, and you're display should fit snugly in the hole. If you can't have square corners, your best bet is to not have corners at all. If you really wanted perfectly square corners, the best way to go about it would be a EDM as previously stated, but that would be pretty expensive.

[borntwisted]

The four holes in the corners and saw between method, then use the saw to cut the corners square after the main bulk has been removed.

Or, if you'd got a steady hand a dremel style tool with a cutting wheel. Maybe clamp the tool in place and use some wood to makeshift a slide/guide to keep the cuts perfectly straight.