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Cutting / Milling 101 Copper

Jerod

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Location
Rochester, NY
Hi guys, I read the other threads on machining copper and it looks like this stuff isn't fun to machine, we usually use tellurium copper which is pretty easy to machine. I need to machine some waveguide flanges from 101 O2 free copper, because of the size it appears as though I will need to saw the blanks from a plate then CNC mill / drill them. Is it suicide to bandsaw them out? Other than that, from what I've read I should use coated drills / mills and thick coolant? Feeds and speeds on the conservative side?
 
I machine 110 .500 plate on occasion. I found high spindle speeds in the mill work good, I never really worried about coolant viscosity, In the lathe I use light doc .015 max and500 rpm. I'd like to use more speed here but its never fun when they come out of the chuck and right back at you...I avoid machine tapping abd drilled holes tend to be tight. If I have a lot of parts to do ill get a pkg of hss drills and replace often rath err than an expensive carbide. Material is very gummy and soft, much like machining bubbalicious. Good luck
 
Jerod,

We machine 101 every day. Most suppliers have plate saws and will cut material to your rough blank size, usually +/-.005. We use solid carbide tools, Zirconium Nitride coatings seems to work well for end mills. Thread form taps if possible as it is very ductile. For slitting & sawing we use Sandvik H13A inserts with sharp ground edge. Drill with coolant fed carbide drills if you have TSP. Keep your tools sharp and you'll get good results. Not too much difference between 110 & 101/102 as far as machining goes. 145 is nice as the chips break up nicely, 101 is tougher & gummy. We use Blaser Vascomil 10 for swissturning it and synthetic water based at about 10% concentration for milling & grinding. If you need help, let me know.

Good luck,

BTBB
 
Thanks so much guys, I'll take those suggestions into consideration. Luckily I caught the engineers before they ordered the stock and had them order it sawed to size with a bit of finishing stock so we don't have to saw them out of a block.
 








 
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