Making a Taig Face Mill

[Burn]

Over the summer, I will have access to many machine tools in my university's machine shop. Most notably HAAS CNC MiniMills, a VF-3 and a VF-4 (4 axis).

My objective is to design and construct a 2" diameter face mill with a 3/8" shank for the ER16 spindle on the Taig. I will be looking for a more powerful (probably 1HP) spindle motor to drive the face mill. I will be using SolidWorks and Esprit 2010 to design and CAM the operation. Any thoughts, advice or ideas would be generously appreciated.

Edit- I may use this instead to get more rigidity out of the setup, but am not sure. http://littlemachineshop.com/product...3122&category=

any ideas?

[awerby]

It takes a huge amount of torque to power a 2" diameter face mill through metal. You can use a 2" diameter fly cutter because there's only a small contact area at any one time. But a face mill is different. Even full-size mills have to take light cuts with those things. And if you look at one, you'll notice it has a shaft that's thicker than 3/8". There's a reason for that.

If you want to make a face mill for the Taig, try making one that's about 3/4" across the face. It still may not work, but at least there's a chance...

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[Burn]

Hi Andrew,

First off, thanks for the reply- I assume you've worked with face mills before- I have not, except on the HAAS minimills at my university.

How much horsepower do you think a 1.5" facemill would require?

[rowbare]

Since it sounds like you are a student I'll assume you love the discovery process. Here are a couple of terms you can search on.

Look for speeds and feeds, material removal rate. There are some online feed and speed calculators that will also calculate the required horsepower.

Or you can download Bob Warfield's GWizard and play with the feed and speed calculator in it: http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCGWizard.html

bob