Cutting Stainless

[Jedi]

Im setting up a program to machine 1000's of stainless (220) steel washers, The insert has to have a .004 nose rad. My depths of cut are .008 and the feed is .002 ipr at 2200 rpm, The edge is dulling quickly and im wondering what adjustments could be to maximize tool life. Thanks.

[DareBee]

Your feed is too slow. If you get chipping your feed is too fast.
IMO .004-.005 would be a finishing feed rate.
Roughing between .008 - .010.
DOC is a little light as well (OK for a finishing pass).
Obviously that is a very small insert, and you didn't mention diameter, insert coating or cutter holder type.
Stainless is best to be cut with major coolant flood.

[Jedi]

The cutter is a VNGP 330, nose radius of .004. The rough diameter is 1.1 inch and the finished part is 1.03 and the thickness is .100 . There is a cutting edge and then a valley thats why the insert has the small rad.

[djbrown]

I'm running a mazak lathe ,working on heat treated stainless.Having huge problems getting anything done.tried different inserts(ceramic ,etc),but still taking 2 hours to go .200 and I have only started turning ,and have tons of other things to do to part.Any suggestions for feed rates,inserts,speeds, cuss words?
Email me at djbrown@djbdesigns.com please.

[Rustybolt]

How hard is the material? Some stainles tends to work harden. What operation/ Drilling, grooving/parting, forming? What feedrate are you using now?
Rule of thumb has always been on tough material; heavy feed, slow speed.

[NC Cams]

I had some dated Carpenter handbooks which gave speed/feed and tooling recommendations. Got us out of a bind with 308SS.

Give the steel supplier tech dept(not the warehouse, they just sell the stuff) and ask their tech support people. They often have handbooks which are invaluable in that regard.

Try Timken Steel (not bearings) website for specs on an equivalent steel. They have some good tool steel machining data.

If the steel is imported, good luck from batch to batch. Sadly, imported steel may not have good tech support. There is a good book on machining tough steels available from Leed Steel in Tonawanda NY. Worth the $$$'s for the beginner and veteran alike, very helpful.