HI guys,
So I goofed. I sent a bunch of parts off to the laser cutter without remembering to delete the outlines of some of the holes & slots we normally machine in after cutting. This is in .190 304 stainless. We originally designed the part for post laser machining because we figured the laser cut edges would eat tools. Simpler to just machine the slots and c'sinks afterward. (We thought)
Except on this run, where all the cuts are there (lasered) it doesn't seem to be quite as horrible as I would expect.
Anybody have any experience milling or cham-milling through the HAZ edges on a laser cut in 304? I haven't got enough cycles yet to see if it's really effecting my tool life one way or another, but it's certainly not destroying cutters the way I expected it to. (C'mon, it's 304. Every time you look at it funny, it does something nasty to the tooling. You have to believe that a short, tight heat gradient would make it especially ugly. Except it doesn't seem to have.)
So I'm looking for experience and wisdom in doing something I thought was a bad idea. Maybe I was wrong?
Regards,
Brian
So I goofed. I sent a bunch of parts off to the laser cutter without remembering to delete the outlines of some of the holes & slots we normally machine in after cutting. This is in .190 304 stainless. We originally designed the part for post laser machining because we figured the laser cut edges would eat tools. Simpler to just machine the slots and c'sinks afterward. (We thought)
Except on this run, where all the cuts are there (lasered) it doesn't seem to be quite as horrible as I would expect.
Anybody have any experience milling or cham-milling through the HAZ edges on a laser cut in 304? I haven't got enough cycles yet to see if it's really effecting my tool life one way or another, but it's certainly not destroying cutters the way I expected it to. (C'mon, it's 304. Every time you look at it funny, it does something nasty to the tooling. You have to believe that a short, tight heat gradient would make it especially ugly. Except it doesn't seem to have.)
So I'm looking for experience and wisdom in doing something I thought was a bad idea. Maybe I was wrong?
Regards,
Brian