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home titanium project

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skywalker4

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hello to all,

i have a little home project, using titanium grade 5,i am using a 1/4" carbide ball nose to cut some kidney bean shapes in the face, maybe 1/4" deep.
i am looking for some place to start on speeds and depths. i will be doing this on a Bridgeport manual mill with a rotary index.

Thanks!
 
Carbide or HHS? That will matter more than anything.
skywalker said:
i am looking for some place to start on speeds and depths. i will be doing this on a Bridgeport manual mill with a rotary index.

With all due respect, your in the CNC section, What would it matter if I told you to run 300 m min at 6mm engagement and a 25% step over. Its a bridgeport, wind it up until the chips are blue, then feed it until the cutter squeals.

Is that the Typical 40:1 rotary dividing index.? You will get RSI before you can keep up with cutter feed rates.

Phil.

(On Edit) You might consider HSM. General

Those blokes are wizards when it comes to manual Brideports.
 
Hi skywalker4:
Manual milling grade 5 titanium alloy is going to be a bit dicey on a floppy old Bridgeport, but it is possible and you can do a nice job too if you're willing to be a bit patient.

Here's what I'd do:
First I'd get myself a pair of 4 flute ball cutters, one that's 7/32" diameter and one that's 1/4" diameter for finishing.
I'd buy HSS instead of carbide.
Carbide likes a rigid setup to avoid flute chipping, so if your machine is tight and you're confident....Naahh, go with the HSS!
Run them slow, maybe 600 RPM for a 4 flute.

Find your start point for each kidney bean shape and slowly plunge to 0.005" of final depth with the 7/32 cutter.
Make sure when you do this that you have all the main axes locked, the rotary axis locked and the cutter choked up as much as possible, the ram back as far as possible, and the quill lock on enough to make the quill a bit draggy.
GENTLY peck it in with the quill, feeding the ball cutter as if it were a twist drill.

Use RapidTap or whatever other tapping fluid you prefer.
Use lots!...make a mess!!

Once you have the start holes in. you can unlock the rotary until it's also a bit draggy, then increment and plunge rough each kidney bean shape taking small bites until you reach the end point for each bean shape.
Once you've done that, move over in X or Y to within 0.005" of one wall, reset the depth, and walk around the periphery of the shape feeding continuously with the rotary ; then do the other wall.
Resist the temptation to try to climb mill this; a Bridgeport with a rotary is pretty floppy, and although Ti is pretty tough and not too grabby (unlike brass for example), if you try to climb cut you risk a big cutter bite if a flute does snatch at the sidewall.

Once you're within 0.005" of the walls, switch to your brand new 1/4" cutter.
Choke it up as before, set your depth and radial position and leave the rotary lock and the quill lock draggy again.

Now drop down to finish depth with the quill as you rotate the rotary at the same time to avoid a dwell divot at the start of your bean shape.
You want to keep the cutter moving as you work the quill down to the stop and swing the rotary together.
Practice it a bit until you're confident you can do it smoothly and repeatably without overshooting with the rotary.
There's a bit of a trick to it, but with a few practice tries well above the job you'll get the hang of it.

Once you have it mastered, walk the cutter into the first bean shape, run the rotary to the end position and then run it back all without stopping the continuous movement of the rotary except when you reverse direction and even then DON'T LINGER.
If you dwell, you'll make a divot, so don't stop!
Lock the shop door, banish the kids, throw the cellphone into the toilet if you have to...whatever it takes to concentrate fully on what you're doing.

That's it...all there is to it.
Before the days of CNC we used to do this kind of thing all the time as moldmakers.
If we fucked it up we had to hand stone it out with polishing stones so we all got really good at avoiding the divots.

It's been 30 years since I moved on to CNC, but I still remember the process back in the stone age.
Man it's soooo much easier now.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
I disagree on the HSS. Get a couple carbide four-flute TIALN coated balls from Helical and let'er buck. Just about any feed and speed will work, but shoot for 90SFM for best results. I use a Helical 1/4" ball for semi-finishing Titanium bone plates, and it will last several hours of cut time. A ball doesn't have fragile corners like a flat endmill.
 
Hi mhajicek:
Are you familiar with just how flexible a Bridgeport with a manual rotary table and a job parked on top of it is?
It's pretty wimpy.
I've done better with HSS under those circumstances just because it's so much more forgiving of the variable chipload and unexpected bouncing around that's typical of these setups on this class of manual machines.

I agree with you, of course, that there's no contest between carbide and HSS as soon as you have even a reasonably decent CNC mill to work with, but the OP doesn't have that.

What kind of machine are you making the bone plates on?
Surely it's not a manual mill with a ram, a knee, dovetail slides, a quill and a bolt-on rotary.
Even a relatively lightweight Swiss lathe with piddly little live tools is stiffer than a Bridgeport for this kind of cutting, and, of course on a CNC you can break up the load with small incremental cuts in a way you can't duplicate easily on any manual machine.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
A good quality sharp HSS endmill will work better in this instance. Make sure it is new, and you haven’t cut anything else with it. Most carbide has an edge prep unless it’s a aluminum or ti specific, the edge prep means the cutting edge is not razor sharp. HSS will almost always have a clean razor edge.

Ti isn’t anything special, and I have machined a small amount of it on a very worn out old Cincinnati Tool master. Pay attention to your heat, don’t let the tool rub, you’ll be fine.
 
Dear ,
Cutting Titanium is easy, If you hold basic parameters.
Tools may be HSS, hold tools very sharp !!!!!
Speed about 30 m/s No more
Feed about 0.1 mm /chip
Regards Libor
 
Hi mhajicek:
Are you familiar with just how flexible a Bridgeport with a manual rotary table and a job parked on top of it is?
It's pretty wimpy.
I've done better with HSS under those circumstances just because it's so much more forgiving of the variable chipload and unexpected bouncing around that's typical of these setups on this class of manual machines.

I agree with you, of course, that there's no contest between carbide and HSS as soon as you have even a reasonably decent CNC mill to work with, but the OP doesn't have that.

What kind of machine are you making the bone plates on?
Surely it's not a manual mill with a ram, a knee, dovetail slides, a quill and a bolt-on rotary.
Even a relatively lightweight Swiss lathe with piddly little live tools is stiffer than a Bridgeport for this kind of cutting, and, of course on a CNC you can break up the load with small incremental cuts in a way you can't duplicate easily on any manual machine.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining

I'm making the Ti bone plates and 17-4 H900 surgical implements on a Haas VF-3SS with a trunnion, so it's no dual-contact 50 taper. I also regularly make manual cuts on an old sloppy Bridgeport and the carbide cutters from Helical and Harvey hold up great. Modern high quality carbide is much tougher than the carbide of twenty years ago, and a ball endmill is about the toughest shape cutter you can make.
 
if you can tilt your head so the bem cuts with the flutes rather than the center cutting nose you will have better luck.
 








 
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