Cnc Turning wood on a mini metal lathe

[whiteriver]

Anyone have experiance with turning wood useing a metal lathe? Not useing gouges by hand on a tool rest. But with carbide tool bits ground to the proper shape and placed in the qctp.
I have a small 7x12 homier and am in the process of cnc'n it. Will be turning pins and other small things from wood acrylic and titanium.
Any links to grinding lathe tools for wood? I know I can mount a spindle to the slide with a 1/4" endmill in it bit I was saving that till I start doing rope candle sticks and lace bowels.

Donny

http://www.whiterivermfg.com

[vladdy]

I have run some wood through my old Gisholt, and it did a fine job..seemed to work better with high speeds small cuts, rounded profile cutter, very similar to the profile on hand tools for wood lathes..
only drawback was making sure the wood dust was kept away from the ways..oil and wood dust combine into a very ugly mud..

enjoy..

[Dave2563]

I've been using my Grizzly 4000 9x19 for about 7 years manually to turn plastic, brass and tropical hardwood parts for woodwind musical instruments. The sizes range from pencil size to candle sized pieces. I'm about to upgrade to the Lathemaster 9x30 because I need to bore through most of these pieces and ream them to specialty narrow tapers. So I need to be able to mount the parts between the chuck and a bearing at the tail end, with enough bed left over for the tailstock to be used to start the bores.

Although I do this for a living, I'm not at all an expert machinist. I know a lot more about the musical performance issues of the final product than I do about the machinery and methods of making them. I get smoother finishes from custom ground steel cutters rather than the carbides. I polish plastic and brass pieces by covering the ways and simply wet-sanding them as they spin. Of course the ways and anything else that might get splashed has to be covered. The wood parts are polished on the lathe with fine dry sandpaper. The final polish on both wood and plastic comes out very nice by just spinning the parts against dry paper towels, which must be kept moving to avoid overheating.

I'm just beginning to investigate CNC and I'm certain to go ahead with it during the coming few months for turning the fairly simple exterior shapes. The interior boring will remain manual.

[whiteriver]

Well I cnc'd the lathe today. And actually cut some rosewood on it. The tool I made was too wide I think and maybe not at the right height. It did ok. Took .09" per pass at 10ipm. Not like my big 4 axis router but at least it works.
Now to find software to cut my profiles.

Donny

http://www.whiterivermfg.com

[JFettig]

Have you tried a regular type tool bit? something with some severe positive rake. That gouge type tool looks like it would have a lot of contact that really isnt needed.

ALso, on my lathe the leadscrew ends were not aligned very well and the alignment and oiling of those helped a ton.

Jon

[whiteriver]

Well I tried a regular tool bit and it made a big difference. Positve rake and 15 deg back 5 degrees down in front and 10 deg down on leading edge. Also added deepgrooves 425 oz/in steppers. Now it goes 50ipm and cant stop it. Wow. The steppers were a big improvement over the 270 oz/in I had. Also redesigned the Z axis motor mount. Now mounts to frame instead of screw bearing block.
The biggest gain was uping the pulse in mach3 from 25,000 to 35,000. Motors had alott more torque. I don't know why that made such a difference but it sure did. Difference is night and day. If I would have known that I wouldn't have needed to mount those 425 oz motors.
Has anyone tried this software for lathe. Looks like it might work well for simple curves etc.
http://stcnc.tripod.com/dxftools/

Donny

http://www.whiterivermfg.com

[JFettig]

Sounds like you got it running well now then, Those steppers sound like a good buy, at first when I saw them I thought someone was just trying to pull your guys' leg but it sounds like they are pretty nice.

That software also looks pretty good, if someone gets ahold of it, Im interested in seeing how it works too.

Now lets see some of your parts you make on this lathe!


Jon

[DeepWoods]

Originally Posted by whiteriver Well I tried a regular tool bit and it made a big difference. Positve rake and 15 deg back 5 degrees down in front and 10 deg down on leading edge. Also added deepgrooves 425 oz/in steppers. Now it goes 50ipm and cant stop it. Wow. The steppers were a big improvement over the 270 oz/in I had. Also redesigned the Z axis motor mount. Now mounts to frame instead of screw bearing block. The biggest gain was uping the pulse in mach3 from 25,000 to 35,000. Motors had alott more torque. I don't know why that made such a difference but it sure did. Difference is night and day. If I would have known that I wouldn't have needed to mount those 425 oz motors. Has anyone tried this software for lathe. Looks like it might work well for simple curves etc. http://stcnc.tripod.com/dxftools/ Donny http://www.whiterivermfg.com

I use mine to cut both wood and acrylic. A standard 1/4" carbide C4 bit has worked well for both wood and acrylic and we also use a VNMG insert for the acrylic at times. http://www.deepwoods.net/cnc/index.html

Are you using the standard lead screws to get the 50IPM on yours? My setup is real similar to yours and I'm not even getting half that. 300oz/in on the Z and 273oz/in on the X using the original leadscrews.....Mach3.....35K pulse. Using unipolar motors though but I wouldn't think that'd be an issue!?!?

[whiteriver]

Yes I get 50 ipm rapids with the stock screw. I plan on changing it out to a ball once I get a extra $100. I only have been cutting at 20 ipm. Don't think I should go much faster with the current tooling. So far all I have cut is wood. No acrylic yet.
I see your running a double toolpost. I would like to set that up but I need to extend the slide I think since I use such a big AXA quick change.
Could be your voltage is why you can't get 50ipm. I have a 50 amp 50 volt supply. More volts means more power. I also have bi-polar motors wired in series. and 425 oz/in.

Donny