Recommended cutter for pultruded fiberglass

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garyhlucas

Stainless

Joined

Oct 17, 2013

Location

New Jersey

• Aug 30, 2016

• #1

We have started making parts from 3/16" thick x 2" wide pultruded fiberglass. 1" radius and 3/4" hole on each end. Have a 5000 rpm spindle bed mill. We do about 20 pcs at a time. What tooling would give us lowest cost per part? The single insert tool we are using goes away fast.

 

sfriedberg

Diamond

Joined

Oct 14, 2010

Location

Oregon, USA

• Aug 30, 2016

• #2

This is a job for your tooling reps! If they don't know the answer for highly abrasive material, they have a direct line to the manufacturer's engineering force, who certainly should.

A little reading suggests Kennametal grade KC401M inserts with TiB2 coating (or replacement grade KC5410) have a good combination of wear resistance and sharpness for fiber-filled plastics. Pultruded is more glass and less plastic, but might still be useful.

CBN or PCD inserts might also be worth a whirl, despite their expense.

You might also call Greenleaf and see if any of their specialist (whiskered) inserts would be appropriate for the job.

If insert cost is more painful than time lost changing inserts, consider cheap C4 uncoated carbides, if you can find any true grade C4 these days.

 

DavidScott

Diamond

Joined

Jul 11, 2012

Location

Washington

• Aug 30, 2016

• #3

Lathe or mill? Best I can think of is diamond. What form that takes depends on exactly what you are doing. If you want cheaper and your needs are more end mill oriented then there are carbide routers available, think double cut die grinder tools. I would think that your needs are general enough that there are plenty of tools to choose from.

Are you using flood coolant or air blast? I worked with a guy that did bow limbs so have some idea of what problems you will be facing. 20 at a time sounds like it isn't worth it.

 

Metalcutter

Titanium

Joined

Sep 14, 2005

Location

San Diego

• Aug 30, 2016

• #4

garyhlucas said:

We have started making parts from 3/16" thick x 2" wide pultruded fiberglass. 1" radius and 3/4" hole on each end. Have a 5000 rpm spindle bed mill. We do about 20 pcs at a time. What tooling would give us lowest cost per part? The single insert tool we are using goes away fast.

Click to expand...

You certainly don't need a 5000 rpm. Did you know fiberglass is an insulter?

It cant be cool. TOOL WEAR!

The best way is use a HS steel "Gold" coated TIN. Id try a rotary saw maybe under finish size. Then bring in the end mill. The rotary saw will get the material out of the way by not having the center mess.

Try to keep the chips clear of the machine.

Regards,

Stan-

RPM rotary saw 200rpm. if you can make nice big chips, do so.

Rpm end mill try 500. Slowly makes big chips ,easy to gather.

 

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razor600rr

Plastic

Joined

Aug 28, 2016

• Aug 30, 2016

• #5

I agree that the larger chip load is the way to go and keeping the chips clear but RPM alone however doesn't make the chips larger your feed and speed both together does. Try a two or three flute cutter rated for abrasive material the maker of the tool will also have a chip load range for that material for ex .010in per tooth multiplied by # of cutting edges multiplied by by the RPM of choice giving you the Inches per minute feed rate to achieve the desired chip load

.01x3flutes=.030/revolution x2500RPM=75IPM

Of course that's if you have power feed


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

John Welden

Diamond

Joined

Mar 21, 2009

Location

Seattle

• Aug 31, 2016

• #6

The only way to go is with diamond grit tooling. That's what they use in industry. The cutters will last you many years, if not forever.

Trust me, no one serious uses carbide or anything else. (PCD sometimes)

These guys can help you.
http://www.diamondtooling.com

 

Last edited: Aug 31, 2016

DavidScott

Diamond

Joined

Jul 11, 2012

Location

Washington

• Aug 31, 2016

• #7

If you go with diamond grit tooling then get vacuum brazed tools, and I don't think NDL does that process. With vacuum brazed diamond you can have a 20% to 30% bond line, meaning 70% to 80% of the diamond crystal is exposed. If you go this route you NEED flood coolant to keep your tools clean. Yes they will last a very long time, or until you crash it.

 

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garyhlucas

Stainless

Joined

Oct 17, 2013

Location

New Jersey

• Aug 31, 2016

• #8

I think we are going to try PCD Diamond end mill and eliminate sawing the pieces to length. We'll just hold the strip in a vise jaw with a pocket in the middle and mill the rounded end right out of the strip, cutting 2 rounded ends at the same time one on each piece. Using a stop on the outboard end makes the length perfect. That eliminates the sawing operation and improves part consistency too. That will easily pay for the PCD tool.

"Every time you touch a part you add cost. How many times does a part get touched?"

Thanks,

 

rcoope

Stainless

Joined

Sep 25, 2010

Location

Vancouver Canada

• Sep 1, 2016

• #9

This might water jet really well

 

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garyhlucas

Stainless

Joined

Oct 17, 2013

Location

New Jersey

• Sep 1, 2016

• #10

Yes waterjet would work great. These parts are rather rndom in length for every job so we make just a dozen or so at a time, and would like to service customers quickly. If we were doing real volume I'd let our waterjet guy do it for sure.