Machining without machine tools

I'm going through the process of fabricating the 3 mounting plates for my Project PANOPTES automated telescope, shown here:
These attach the cameras and their enclosure to the equatorial mount. The goal is that folks without specialized equipment can build the telescope. The plates come from the vendor 12" long, but need to be cut down to around 200mm (7.87"). The recommendation is to use a hacksaw, so here is my first attempt:
OK, so I need to improve my hacksaw technique.

Searching around the web, it appears that I should scribe the line pretty deeply, and all the way around. Some beeswax or other lubricant was suggested in some places, presumably to slow the process of cutting so that it doesn't veer off course quickly.

Update: I tried again with more deeply scored lines, and sawing across the width of the bar, but that didn't appear to be very effective -- the hacksaw blade still wandered. So I made a little jig in the form of a piece of wood to clamp against one side of the line to be cut. This yielded a very nice straight edge, though it wasn't quite perpendicular to the long edge.

Comments

  1. How about using a jigsaw with fence. Still fairly low tech!

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    1. I do have a jigsaw, but rarely use it and have only previously used it on wood, so I have no idea if any of the blades would be up to cutting through a half inch of aluminum. I'll try that next time, thanks.

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