glass filled nylon

[Ryno]

Does anyone have experience with machining glass filled nylon, I need to saw, turn, mill, drill & tap this stuff but have zero experience with it. I have been told that it is very abrasive.

[lakeside]

The stuff is very abrasive. Lathe tool you want 10 deg angle and 30 secondary angles as chip will fly off in one long thread use the highest feed rate you feel comfortable with. When turning small dia. go for dimension in one pass. When drill use 120 deg spot drill an drill to countersink size before drilling if id need a good hole size drill pilot and then finish drill material tends to rip at edge so look for your cutters to feed into part with tool rotation not off part

[NC Cams]

Nylatron GF might machine a bit easier - it has MoS2 in it.

We found it to be especially good at sliding over Nylon 6-6GF and just as tough, strength wise. It actually worked better as gear material over 6-6GF due to better self lubricity.

[mxtras]

Not to mention Nylatron GS holds dimensions extremely well, is tough as hell and is super easy to cut. Good suggestion, cams.

Scott

[Geof]

Originally Posted by Ryno Does anyone have experience with machining glass filled nylon, I need to saw, turn, mill, drill & tap this stuff but have zero experience with it. I have been told that it is very abrasive.

Very abrasive is an understatement. Except for tapping you can do everything you mention with carbide tooling and that is what you should use; high speed steel will wear out very quickly. Also regarding tapping are you really sure you want to do this? Threads in glass reinforced plastics are not as strong as you might expect. Notice that lakeside comments how this material rips at the edges; threads are all edges. There are threaded inserts intended for use in injection molded glass reinforced plastics and these maybe could be used in machined parts using the same material.

Another point about this type of material is that it can be very rough on the machines you use. Finely ground glass dust is not really a good thing to get on machine guide ways. Also it is not the best thing in the world to inhale. I suggest using a coolant more to keep the dust down than anything; and changing the coolant frequently so you are not circulating what will rapidly become grinding paste.

[robbdee40]

Can anyone give me some information on the machinability of PTFE 25% glass filled?