Pattnmaker
Stainless
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2007
- Location
- Hamilton, Ontario
I recently quoted a profile cutting job cutting a 1/2" 4x8 sheet of aluminum into around 120 letters and numbers. I had planned on doing this on my CNC router that has a Fogbuster MQL system set up on it using a 1/4" streaker endmill. The router is all ballscrews and I have used it to cut aluminum coreboxes in the past. I had planned on cutting it in 4 steps of depth and with a roughing and finishing pass mostly to help clear chips and prevent binding. Lots of passes but a pretty high feed has worked well for me in the past with the router which while fairly rigid by router standards is pretty flimsy by metal cutting standards.
My customer has now told me that he made a mistake and about 80% of the letters (all the ones with the tightest corners) are actually 1" aluminum. Suddenly I am far less confident I cannot choke the endmill up like I had planned and the MQL Lube is less likely to reliably make it to the bottom of a deep slot.
I am now wondering if a corncob cutter to rough makes more sense then a finishing pass with the streaker? Or just space the letters out more and widen the slot?
Another option would be to have the sheet cut up into 30x24" pieces and cut the job on my new to me Machining Center. It would end being the first job on the machine. Disadvantages would be more difficult hold downs, machine is not 100% ready to go yet 99% but not quite there, and extra material waste. Advantages would be the extra rigidity, Flood coolant, and smaller pieces I would be less worried about the middle of the sheet lifting so I could leave a thin skin on the back to break out rather than adding and cutting tabs which will be a lot of extra work.
I would love to hear some thoughts on this.
My customer has now told me that he made a mistake and about 80% of the letters (all the ones with the tightest corners) are actually 1" aluminum. Suddenly I am far less confident I cannot choke the endmill up like I had planned and the MQL Lube is less likely to reliably make it to the bottom of a deep slot.
I am now wondering if a corncob cutter to rough makes more sense then a finishing pass with the streaker? Or just space the letters out more and widen the slot?
Another option would be to have the sheet cut up into 30x24" pieces and cut the job on my new to me Machining Center. It would end being the first job on the machine. Disadvantages would be more difficult hold downs, machine is not 100% ready to go yet 99% but not quite there, and extra material waste. Advantages would be the extra rigidity, Flood coolant, and smaller pieces I would be less worried about the middle of the sheet lifting so I could leave a thin skin on the back to break out rather than adding and cutting tabs which will be a lot of extra work.
I would love to hear some thoughts on this.