Originally Posted by mrscheider  Excellent discussions folks. Thanks allot.
Let me get some clarity on a few things, if I may?
First, the concensus is to use 4 flutes. I have a carbide TIN 2 flute 1/4 flat.
No good?
The steel is definitly an unknown. It was stuff the shop had laying around. I threw it on my chop saw and initially, the first 30 seconds made a good bite in it. I stopped before finsihing that cut because too many sparks were flying around giant piles of sawdust. lol
Artist 5, I'm a little surprised about your cuts in Aluminum. My taig goes through it like butter. I generally use 20% of my tool diameter on a rough cut through 6061 at 5 ipm sometimes faster. Most commonly I use a 1/4 flat so that would be .05 per pass.
In steel, perhaps 1/32 was optimistic..  it was just an example.. Im sure I would have found out the hard way to thin it out.
YoungJim, Excellent idea regarding the investment casting. I actually thought about it but the ceramic wouldnt hold up to repeated castings of molten aluminum or brass, plus I would have to detroy the mold to remove the part.
In the steel mold, I could simply unbolt the face and remove the casted part, rebolt and reuse.
Andre, Thank you for the program, I already have the code to do the design I first conceived but this is a definitly Plan B. Much appreciated!
Kind Regards,
Michael |
You can of course use a 2 flute to cut steel, but your feed rate will be half that of a 4 flute. This project already has you behind the 8 ball in terms of feeds, doubling a long job isn't pretty. To me another end mill is cheap money compared to extra hours of machine time, but everyone has their own cost threshold.