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What grade of end mill to use on hardfacing?

crossthread

Titanium
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Location
Richmond,VA,USA
I have a job to do on a piece of farm equipment that has been hardfaced with Dynarod tungsten carbide. To make matters worse it has been applied in a zig zag pattern which makes it an interrupted cut. I need to mill 1" slots 2" long to mount these wear plates. The base material is .5" thick 4140. What would be your choice of material for cutting these slots? If anybody has tried this and failed, then I will look into water jetting although I have no experience with cutting tungsten with a waterjet. Thanks.
 
I have a job to do on a piece of farm equipment that has been hardfaced with Dynarod tungsten carbide. To make matters worse it has been applied in a zig zag pattern which makes it an interrupted cut. I need to mill 1" slots 2" long to mount these wear plates. The base material is .5" thick 4140. What would be your choice of material for cutting these slots? If anybody has tried this and failed, then I will look into water jetting although I have no experience with cutting tungsten with a waterjet. Thanks.

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grinder job and diamond wheel too. as aluminum oxide wheel usually wont do much on tungsten carbide
 
Simple template and hand held plasma cutter, have done hundreds of holes - slots for farm stuff, goes fast and easy and you really don't notice hard facing in the slightest.

Milling slots in farm wear components is going to cost you more in cutters than you can make doing it.
 
Thanks guys. I guess I really didn't think this one through enough. I hear slots I think milling. I have a plasma torch and grinders. I will probably do the bulk of the cutting with the plasma torch and clean it up with the grinder. Thanks so much for the reality check.
 
+1 for plasma

Router a jig out of some wood, or mill one out of some aluminum so you can rest the torch against something and make an even cleaner cut that way. Make your oversized slot jig, clamp it onto the plate, and have at it.
 
Trim it to fit with the plasma. You will wear out yourself and your supply of wheels before you get the slot ground to perfection. Its a piece of soil engaging farm equipment. It will wear out quickly no matter how fine of job you do.
 
As others said.
If any accuracy is needed, better industrial cutting wheels are available and can easily dress small cut size variations to very good hand-held accuracy around 0.1 mm or better.

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Tech below. Imho.
- - -
My recommendation.
You can probably make a simple punch to finish the slot size very well.
A tapered punch in industrial O1 or air (oil) hardening drill rod.
Cut simple teeth with positive rake, 5-9 degrees goal, staggered left/right.

Aim for about 0.1 mm finish size vs plasma cut, or 5-10 teeth per set or side, or 10-20 teeth total.
Punch the thing through with any of your agri tools, using heavy cutting oil, and make a jig if necessary.
Make the jig about 100x heavier than you think you need.
- - -
A jigged punch above might last 5-10-20 punches before getting dull.
5-10 mins with a hand-held spindle can sharpen it for another x runs.
- - -
A custom tooth carbide cutter insert from a shop is not expensive.
They might cost about 10$ each, for simple ones like this, qty 40.
They could run 10x faster and make maybe 20-40x more pieces.
--
If you need accurate slots, carbide burrs and simple jig supports can potentially get you to 0.02-0.04 mm in some terms of size, flatness, straightness, or position.
Or mounted points aka proper abrasives.

I mean it is quite easy to get a cut to be either,
flat, smooth, to size, or straight,
with cutting wheels and burrs and stuff. Fairly fast.

E.g.
1.
If You needed qty 1, very accurate slot it could be easily done with a NSK hand held spindle to about 0.02 mm accuracy, given metrology for same.

2.
Given some time and stuff, the slot could be 10x more volumetrically accurate, to about 0.002-0.004 mm over a slot.
This is about 2000x more difficult.
Or only 20x more difficult if some constraints are relaxed.
 
Trim it to fit with the plasma. You will wear out yourself and your supply of wheels before you get the slot ground to perfection. Its a piece of soil engaging farm equipment. It will wear out quickly no matter how fine of job you do.

True, ……..from back in the day when Sami contracted for a big veg growing and pecking company.


1 ;- TD (Highly skilled Tractor Driver) on seeing his new custom built cultivator that I'd spent a lot of time and effort on ''Coe Sami, ya made a lovely job of that.'' ''Thanks mate'' say's I, TD grinned '' now I'm gonna drag it through the dirt.''


2 ;- I was chatting with that TD his mate and the big bossman when the packhouse manager - NOT a farming type, commented there was a lot of fly infestation on some cabbage off a certain field and there was still over 20 acres of it to come etc etc etc, with the bossman saying how many 000's it was worth etc etc,...…... TD says to his mate and bossman ''No problem, we've got just the tool for that haven't we?'' TD #2 nods agreement.

Packhouse guy says ''So you're gonna spray it with **** naming a (now banned) chemical insecticide at which TD #2 says ''No, a bloody great disc harrow.''


The bossmans look and shriek of horror was truly to behold
 
Hanermo,
The hardfacing mentioned is tungsten carbide particles in a steel matrix. The only practical way to cut it is with plasma or arc gouging.
 








 
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