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Glock slide machining

patracy

Plastic
Joined
Feb 18, 2016
I've got a CNC mill and we've been playing around with machining slides. In the past with our "toy" CNC. We just used cutting oil on the slide. Using carbide tooling, this provided a good finish. Last night I tried cutting a slide on actual real CNC. The results weren't that great. I had the feed rate cranked all the way down. Using 1/8 carbide end mills. Flood coolant. Spindle speed was 3K. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
 
A few questions...

How did you have the slide secured, i.e. what is your work holding? What was the feed rate? What was the issue with the surface finish? Chatter, tearing, etc.
 
I have found that milling a Glock slide can be all over the place with the hardened finish. You have to move through at a decent feed. I would slow your spindle down. Try fuzzing in a surface grinder first, I have produced the best results this way.
 
A few questions...

How did you have the slide secured, i.e. what is your work holding? What was the feed rate? What was the issue with the surface finish? Chatter, tearing, etc.

6" vise. I'll have to power up the mill to see what it was, but I know I ran it at about 20% tops. Chatter, tearing.
 
That tennifer/nitrocarburized finish can be hell on a tool, especially if you're not deep enough to get under the top surface and start breaking chips from under the nitrocarburization. If you're just skimming real shallow along a surface completely treated, you're just going to burn up your tool and make it worthless.

1/8" sucks, too. You need to go thicker with your first tool, imo, so you get a little better rigidity without having the toolholder so close that you can't keep air/mist pointed at it. If you NEED that smaller diameter for some features, do it after you've roughed away the hard shit. Though for all the RDS I've put on Glocks and M&Ps, I've never needed to put any really tight radius features milled into it.

What are you mounting? A specific optic, an adaptor plate, a dovetail or what?

You also should give feedrate in IPM... a % means nothing, really, because we don't know what it's a percentage -of-. What's your depth of cut? You're not trying to plunge into it, right? You're leading in from the side?
 
That tennifer/nitrocarburized finish can be hell on a tool, especially if you're not deep enough to get under the top surface and start breaking chips from under the nitrocarburization. If you're just skimming real shallow along a surface completely treated, you're just going to burn up your tool and make it worthless.

1/8" sucks, too. You need to go thicker with your first tool, imo, so you get a little better rigidity without having the toolholder so close that you can't keep air/mist pointed at it. If you NEED that smaller diameter for some features, do it after you've roughed away the hard shit. Though for all the RDS I've put on Glocks and M&Ps, I've never needed to put any really tight radius features milled into it.

What are you mounting? A specific optic, an adaptor plate, a dovetail or what?

You also should give feedrate in IPM... a % means nothing, really, because we don't know what it's a percentage -of-. What's your depth of cut? You're not trying to plunge into it, right? You're leading in from the side?

Need the 1/8" to allow for the radius, cutting pockets/designs into the slide. When possible I try to make side cuts. But some of this ends up being plunges.

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Shoot, I forgot about the aesthetic/grip milling. Never did that much, so I was tunnel-visioned into thinking about optic mounting.

The milling I've done for aesthetics/gripping was all straight slash cuts I could approach from the side and go through at full DOC so I can't help much. I never successfully plunge cut into it, and never had to try.

How are you ramping into the cut?
 
As already suggested deep and slow will get you much further along than tickling the top, you're more apt to be wearing your endmill than actually getting through the hardened skin. Investing in some tools with corner radii will also help your tools last longer and can always been cleaned up after roughing.

The first pass at something like 50 sfm and .0005 per tooth with carbide tooling to get under the skin and you can speed up from there. You may want to vary your depth of cut so you don't notch your tool from contact with the hardened skin.

Even hard anodizing will have a surface skin in the high 60's to 70 RC that can cause difficulties machining aluminum parts.
 
d64dec7188da788274d1edc540892f11.jpg
i started machining them also 1/8 em is 4500 rpms 20 Ipm.01 depth of cut 8 percent step over


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i started machining them also 1/8 em is 4500 rpms 20 Ipm.01 depth of cut 8 percent step over
Given any kind of other choice, I would never use a stinky little 1/8" end mill. Get a horizontal mill type cutter - looks like a fat slitting saw - and go across it sideways instead. The cutter is a bazillion times better. Maybe try a t-slot cutter, those are readily available and don't need special holders. I wouldn't use a woodruff cutter because those are seriously relieved right next to the cutting part.

I personally like this style because the angled teeth don't go chunk-chunk-chunk in the cut but the others work okay too ... you might need to make something to get more extension or just use something with a bigger diameter. Do it this way once and you will never go back to milling grooves with an end mill.

t_slot_cutter.jpg


For the holes, you're screwed on finish pass but at least you can get most of it out with a bigger mill first.
 
Glock grip machining

i started machining them also 1/8 em is 4500 rpms 20 Ipm.01 depth of cut 8 percent step over


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I would be very interested in knowing how you achieved the smooth finish in the plastic on that grip.

TIA,

GsT
 
Sand paper wet dry move up to 2000 grit then just buff it up


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bd857cce76f0cb51286b3ab542c55fdd.jpg
here is another one
26ccb13011ea1363bd32f800caa42573.jpg
here is a 43
 








 
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