A New Face Mill for My Mill

[slowtwitch]

Hello Everyone, It's been some time since posting here. First of all my "Use To Be Mikini" has been running with out incident...no spindle alarms, no electronics going berserk due to ground faults...eddy currents or what ever

I'm probably averaging 2 to 4 hrs machining on weekdays and a good 6 hrs per day on weekends and the mill under it's current specs has preformed flawlessly. I mentioned to Swath that I kinda of take it for granted at times... start the program and walk away

Anyway, back to the topic of this post. One of the steps in making my kits is to face a 3 by .500 inch aluminum piece of stock to .375" . I was using a two inch face mill, but, i kept thinking a 4" face mill would be quicker

I bit the bullet and purchased a 4" Glacern FM 45 Face Mill. First of all let me say this, Glacern makes a very fine product. The fit and finish is top notch on this tool. I did weigh it and it comes in at 6.8 lbs on my postage scale.

I've been using the face mill for a bit, I have already have faced off about twenty pieces (front and back) and I'm impressed with both the Glacern FM45 and my mill In the video I'm still using the original edges on the inserts, hence you'll see some scratch marks. These are easily removed in the polishing phase.

In the video, I also mention my newly installed gas struts. these are 75 lb units from McMaster Carr. The reason for the change was that , when I would touch off the top of a piece, I'm pretty sure I saw a small bounce in my indicator..after the installation of the new struts, it feels solid

Anyway, here's the face mill in action.




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[mcphill]

Looks great! I use a single point face mill alot, and am always stunned by the quality of the finish! You should be able to improve on your MRR with that bit, I would think, couldn't you? I would think you could have a feedrate 3-4 times that fast with the horsepower you have available...

[slowtwitch]

Looks great! I use a single point face mill alot, and am always stunned by the quality of the finish! You should be able to improve on your MRR with that bit, I would think, couldn't you? I would think you could have a feedrate 3-4 times that fast with the horsepower you have available...

I'm still learning this stuff and I still have a little chicken in me.....lol

[neilw20]

pete,

Mount your struts with the skinny side down for longer life.
Reason:
There is some oil in the struts, and with the skinny end up the oil will not be on the seals as intended.
Result:
Gas will eventually leak out.

[slowtwitch]

pete,

Mount your struts with the skinny side down for longer life.
Reason:
There is some oil in the struts, and with the skinny end up the oil will not be on the seals as intended.
Result:
Gas will eventually leak out.

That is how they are mounted

[neilw20]

Ah, yes. I was deceived by the back-splash hiding them,

[slowtwitch]

Looks great! I use a single point face mill alot, and am always stunned by the quality of the finish! You should be able to improve on your MRR with that bit, I would think, couldn't you? I would think you could have a feedrate 3-4 times that fast with the horsepower you have available...

mcphill, I'm up to 90 ipm since the video post and the mill handled it with no problem....I'm still a bit of a chicken to go higher ...but, I'll try after I get some parts done

[SWATH]

Wow that is some serious chip throwing. With the old motor I stalled the spindle facing 6061 aluminum with a 2" WOC and a .01 DOC. I was so mad and fed up I threw a drill bit across the room. Before I made the cut I thought surely it can do this. Nope. With the new motor I've just about completely lost the fear of stalling, now I'm much more concerned about machine rigidity and chatter, and chipping tools from that. I can make a very aggressive cut and the motor barely notices but the machine shakes like it's disco night. The coolant puddles on the chip tray start sputtering like they were poured on a hot plate. My only concern (if you want to call it that) is that the spindle load gets up to around 30% on an aggressive cut at very low rpm like <400 rpm and that is as high as I've seen the load go. When the rpm is over 1000 the load meter barely registers when in a cut. I've now even stalled the Z axis motor when trying an aggressive drill, the motor didn't show any sign of stalling or even bogging down but the load went up to around 30%.

The cut was:

0.5" cobalt drill
380 rpm
4.0 ipm
0.1 peck
hard 4140 HT alloy steel (the same thing machine gun barrels are made of)

That cut was no problem for the motor but it stalled the Z axis motor on the downward plunge even with the 80lb motor and the weight of the spindle head helping it down.