I need to make a mold for a carbon fiber boom that is 800mm long and tapers from 45mm diameter to 30mm diameter, about 1mm wall. Haven't decided for sure yet in the process, possibly air bladder inside female molds, or possible male/female compression mold.
Anyway, my machine travel is only 650mm in x axis so my plan is to clamp down a piece of tooling plate to the table, machine 4 holes for dowel pins in the plate as well as the stock for mold that will allow me to machine part of the mold, turn 180 and relocate with the pins to machine the rest. Starting with tooling plate for the mold is gonna make this so much easier since both faces are done. If I start with a chunk of something that isn't faced, this will be a nightmare.
So how well will atp-5 handle 3d milling? I'll be using mist coolant (kool mist). Will it have decent surface finish? Will it polish nicely? Or would it be much better to machine from regular 6061?

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