Working with Hardox...?

Hi All!

Basically, nothing has been started yet but I'm trying to get my mental knowledge around this topic prepared first haha!

After the XR Colchester event, Dad and I both looked at each other after the Featherweight melee and just went 'We're gonna need to buff the robots up for this'. Previously, all we've built out of is aluminium and a bit of mild steel.
Hardox is a very new one on us. To the point I saw dad Googling 'Can Hardox be welded' on his phone - and he never Googles anything!

Which leads me to here. If anyone can give some advice, tips, ect. for working with Hardox it would be much appreciated! Mainly, how best to cut it, drill it, attach/weld, and any other things you might think would be useful to know.

At present our workshop setup consists of a (to the best of my knowledge) bandsaw (speed variable), milling machine, tower drill, a stick welder and a plethora of essential hand tools.

Cheers for any advice you can give! :)

First thing is that you would need an angle grinder with cutting disks and sanding disks.
Drilling, you will need to get some Cobolt drill bits - toolstation have these, https://www.toolstation.com/power-to...drill-bits/c82. You will need some water soluble cutting fluid, or better like CT-90.

The blade on the bandsaw will not cope with steel tbh, unless its a variable speed one of decent quality. I wouldnt dream of putting some into my Aldi/Lidl bandsaw.

Obtaining it is more difficult, but possible from suppliers as a FULL sheet.

Most people design something up in cad or on paper and get it watercut/plasma cut from K-cut, Jonno from ER or other suppliers.

I would recommend doing some cardboard designing and making it from 3mm MDF sheet before committing to Hardox if your laser cutting.

for my complex shapes on mine, its actually made up from triangles pieced together and adjusted with the grinder to suit, then welded in place. I also used the angle grinder to cut mostly the way through a flat shape, then folded it to get the shape I needed.

Example source for materials or cutting from a suitable size. https://bit.ly/2lKdt3J