Machining ceramic

[ndog]

I'm looking at getting a Tormach for machining small quantities of small (1in. O.D.) parts.

Most of the parts will be Aluminum but I also need to make ceramic versions.

Has anyone machined Macor or any other machinable ceramic on a Tormach?

[Magnum164]

At some point I want to try my hand at some ceramic parts. Macor is machinable, but I don't know where you can buy it cheap enough.

You mention getting a Tormach for machining round parts? Most on the forum will probably ask which Tormach are you thinking about getting? Also remember round parts may be easier to make on a lathe. After I got my 770 it was probably less then a month later I had to order a Grizzly lathe as some of my jobs are simply easier faster on the lathe.

[ndog]

Your right about using a lathe for round parts, right tool for the job. Which Grizzly lathe did you get and what is your opinion of it?

Because I will be running larger parts as well I would prefer to get the larger 1100 instead of the 770. I'm concerned that the lower spindle speed of the 1100 would limit performance when using small diameter (.125dia) end mills although the 3x speeder might be the answer.

I'm not worried about total machining time but whether or not I can machine using the small dia. end mills when required.

These particular parts are custom substrates and could be round or oblong and in some cases square or rectangular but all would tend to be reasonably small less than 2 inches for the largest dimension with some sort of center diameter or cutout.

Not having CNC experience it seems to me that profiling would be a quick way to fab these parts.

I had a local CNC shop try to machine some ceramic blocks for me and even after following the Macor guidelines he was unable to machine the ceramic without it chipping. He located a shop for me that did nothing else but machine ceramics and they had no problem at all.

[byellin]

ndog. We use an 1100 to make production "lathe" parts, mostly small diameter stuff by chucking round stock in the spindle, and chucking the lathe tools in the vise. We've even used the new TTS ATC as a stock loader for production runs. Each "tool change" loads a new piece of round stock in the spindle, held in a drill chuck, to be machined. For larger lathe parts, we use a Grizzly 4003 lathe with an aftermarket DRO from mTech. It too, see's hard duty in production machining.

[Magnum164]

Your right about using a lathe for round parts, right tool for the job. Which Grizzly lathe did you get and what is your opinion of it?

I got the G0602. Nice lathe. I had planned on converting it to CNC until I heard Tormach was going to release a CNC lathe, so I will hold off a bit and see what they release. But, it's a very good lathe. First thing I did was replace the tool post though. QC was definitely needed.

I turn small .125 end mills at about 4-6K in AL, so unless you need the higher RPM's for surfacing I would think the 1100 would handle them fine. I do plan on getting the speeder even for the 770 as I have some vacuum form molds to make in the future.

[ndog]

Thanks for the info guys, if I need a lathe I'll definitely look at the Grizzly line.

byellin, that's a pretty cool use of the ATC.

[Freddy Bastard]

Have machined a lot of macor with my Tormach. When I say a lot, I mean a lot. Very small and precise parts. The secret is in the tooling and in the toolpath strategies. I've always used carbides, and most of the time it's best to use new tools. For toolpaths, you need small cuts, full coolant. And try to minimize shocks.

[ndog]

Thanks for the tips Freddy Bastard, I'm relieved to hear that it's capable of doing what I need.