Inconel 718 Question

[Mr.Xtreme]

Hi Guy's

I recently had took on a project with pcs of 316SS and Inconel 718 for Time and Material. We want to be fair on the pricing to the Customer as well, but don't want to lose money working with it.
Sometimes Customers Balk at pricing and sometimes we lower it to win the Job, but what is reasonable money for cutting this stuff?
Most of the work we do is in the stainless grades ie: 17-4, 316, 455, 465 Custom, etc.
Question is as you know is this material is not your everyday cutting.
Special positive inserts work decent with this material, but tool life is still short life compared to the stainless, and also the SFM speeds are much lower, and that is much longer cutting times too. So here is the Question.............?

If you were pricing this Iconel Material for your Mill or Lathe, Where would you be pricing wize? How much percentage roughly higher would you quote it at in Inconel verses Stainless Steel aking parts out of each material being identical, to cover additional difficulties with this material?
Any suggestioins or comments welcome.

Thanx

Paul

[big_mak]

X,

You are getting into tricky territorty here asking for this kinda help. Lots of trade secrets here, and that's why the guys cutting this stuff everyday get lots of $$$$$.

I personally wouldn't want to cut this stuff on a Haas. You need RIGID machines and specialized ($$$) Tooling. Greenleaf makes some whisker Ceramics that work well with solid machines, otherwise it's gonna beat you up big time.

This is the kinda thing you can only learn by running on your equipment, as no one here will know the true state of your equipment, which will have a huge bearing on how quickly you will be able to machine this material.

[CNCRim]

Inconel is not everyday material, I can't give you rule of thumb what to charge and how to charge 'cause I don't know what machine, tool and specially the crew you are having. It will make all the difference between good and bad bid.

[Mr.Xtreme]

Yes, I thought about it after writting it as to What am I asking here.
I did cut this stuff. Actually it went pretty well.
It was a 3.0 od solid bar. We had drilled it, bored it to 2.75 id and cut it off at 1.0 long. Except for the load on spindle being in the upper 90-100 percents loads, while drilling it with an 1.312 insert drill, boring there was no real problem. It just takes time to cut it. The the x and z axis loads were a modest 60% at the most. The finishes were superb too, even at the lower speeds.

[dertsap]

more or less if your setup right you should have no real problems , well that is depending on what your customer expects ,
you may want to focus on tool costs more so than just hourly quoting , be generous to yourself because if you run into any trouble cutting the stuff then you will loose your shirt ,
if the customer doesn t like the quote then walk ,its not worth the trouble ,

http://www.hightempmetals.com/techda...nel718data.php

[Geof]

Originally Posted by big_mak ......I seem to recall the Avro Arrow story as well. I wonder what wiki says about that?......

Go have a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Arrow

I skimmed through it quickly and it seems to concur quite well with other accounts I have read about the Arrow.

And on the thread topic: I think the easiest way to make something in Inconel is let somebody else do it.

[big_mak]

Geof,

I'd disagree and say price it HIGH!!!! and if you get then have fun!!!!

[big_mak]

PBMW,

Have you tried the Greenleaf stuff? http://www.greenleafglobalsupport.co...s/WG300App.pdf

I've used it on big VBM's to turn grooves and it worked a hot damn!! Ridiculously high SFM but this vertical lathe takes 2" square shank tools!!!

[MikeOD]

Originally Posted by big_mak Greenleaf makes some whisker Ceramics that work well with solid machines, otherwise it's gonna beat you up big time.

Have you ever seen what machines Greenleaf uses to demonstrate their tooling at trade shows? Might want to take a look before you call a Haas "not rigid". There are LOTS of Haas machines around the world cutting HARD materials and doing just fine. That "can't cut real material in a Haas" myth is just that...an old myth that in some people's eyes hasn't died yet. There's a "right" machine for the job...thats why Haas has such a large product line. A 50 taper Haas can take tremendous cuts day in day out for years...a 40 taper will do a LOT too when you realistically pick the size of the tooling based on the size of that taper...50 tapers all have gearboxes...if you're going to cut it in a 40 taper though, make sure it's a gearbox machine.

[big_mak]

I have the 40 taper with a gearbox, and I wouldn't want to cut hard stuff with it too often. 10K gearbox high torque. On this machine however the guides and the castings do not get upgraded when you get the gearbox. Mechinically nothing but the spindle changes.

It can do it yes, But I'd rather do it on a 50 taper machine. Even with the Haas 50tapers it's the same as the gearbox option for the smaller machines, they don't go and beef stuff up just for the bigger spindle.

If I were to do this stuff everyday, I'd look at some thing a bit more beefy.

I'd like to see the cut parameters that they use for them demo's at the shows.

I didnt' say it can't be done. but if you want to do it competetively on a repeat basis you should look into something heavier.