Heavy duty V-blocks - video

[Jon]

Heavy duty V-blocks. By Cutting Edge Engineering Australia. 37:32 video:

[Toolmaker51]

Yes, emphatically YES!
Although, for all that work, they should have perpendicular locating key and countersunk holes also, for use laying down.

[Bony]

A good job and the locating keyway is a great idea. Thanks for sharing.

[wizard69]

CEE has one of m favorite YouTube channels. Mainly because I never work on anything that big at work. My biggest problem is breaking tiny end mills on a manual Bridgeport.

[Toolmaker51]

CEE has one of m favorite YouTube channels. Mainly because I never work on anything that big at work. My biggest problem is breaking tiny end mills on a manual Bridgeport.

How tiny is tiny? How many flutes? Materials? Using right RPM? What condition is mill in? End milling, pocket or surface; profile, climb or conventional? Coolant; flood, direct or air?
Regardless size of machine, concern magnifies as cutter size decrease. All of them connect to chip evacuation, especially milling.

[wizard69]

Hi Toolmaker;

First; let me highlight that I'm not a machinist per say, more a jack of all trades working on automation equipment maintenance and build. All of the equipment we have in the shop is manual. We also work on a lot of optical equipment for inspection.

How tiny is tiny?

Around 2mm for end mills, but most of the work is larger. We seldom hog out material. I've acutely broken a few drill bits (mid 70's number drills too, those are often tiny too and sadly this often happens in aluminum. I realize that the problem with drilling is not pecking enough and clearing as when we do drill like this it is often rather deep in the aluminum. More RPM's out of the spindle might help but these are just old Bridgeports.

How many flutes?

The vast majority are 4 flute.

Materials?

plastics, ceramics, steel, aluminum, tool steels, stainless steels. A lot of our stuff is in clean rooms so there is a strong balance towards stainless steels and plastics.

Using right RPM? What condition is mill in?

RPM? Probably not, the head only has so many possible belt settings plus back gear. We actually have two mills both hand me downs from other departments, but they are very old. At least one of them though has had very little use as it came out of a research lab somewhere.

End milling, pocket or surface; profile, climb or conventional?

This is largely maintenance, modification and small device build, so all of the above are possible. We do try to do conventional milling when ever possible.

Coolant; flood, direct or air?

It depends as far as coolant goes, all manually applied though. Sometimes cutting oil, sometimes water soluble sprayed on.

Regardless size of machine, concern magnifies as cutter size decrease. All of them connect to chip evacuation, especially milling.

Yeah I'm learning this the hard way as I know for a fact that re-cutting chips has damaged more than a couple of end mills. Looking back I would have to say most of the broken end mills come from work hardening and the related issues with feed rate / RPM. This is compounded by sometimes not knowing the alloy and the heat treat condition. I've gotten better with this but the total lack of feedback, you get even with a 1/4" end mill in steel, is a big problem. There is no feel to be had.


As for CEE the other thing that differs is that he has customers actually rebuilding hyd cylinders. I really think the boss would laugh me out of the shop if I tried to rebuild an air cylinder or hyd cylinder off our machines. That would be considered a waste of time.or goofing off. The size of the stuff he works on is totally at the other end of the spectrum.

[Toolmaker51]

THAT my friends, is how to answer questions. Not only wizard69 and I exchanging, anyone reading this can pick up the conversation, and certain newbies will see a "I didn't know that revelation!

Best quick answer, (on the way to help tenant with a project) is 2mm endmills? Without a very sound manual machine, well adjusted lead screw and gibs, smooth running spindle, is a challenge for any of us. I will say, regardless the 3600 topped out RPM of a turret mill, they aren't the ticket. An 1/8" 2 flute in aluminum for 200 feet per minute speed, 0.0006 chip load, 7 inches per minute feed is 6100 RPM.

I keep a stop watch in my tool box, for converting numerical 1-2-3-4-5 settings of electric feed motors into IPM.
In those conditions; half the RPM, about demands half the feed rate.
Let them complain, my favorite new phrase, stolen off 'follow the science', is 'run the formula'.

Hi Toolmaker; <<<<<<<snipped>>>>>> Around 2mm for end mills, but most of the work is larger. We seldom hog out material. I've acutely broken a few drill bits (mid 70's number drills too, those are often tiny too and sadly this often happens in aluminum. I realize that the problem with drilling is not pecking enough and clearing as when we do drill like this it is often rather deep in the aluminum. More RPM's out of the spindle might help but these are just old Bridgeports.
.

edited in, only 4 hours later.
Trick to peck drilling is to use the quill stop nut. With one hand on the quill lever, other wrapped around the lower spindle housing. Use thumb to rotate the nut, touch off, retract and rotate, just a few thousandths, touch off again and retract. Approach the material at RPM, pecking air until you see the first chips. Continue in this manner until depth reached or through material.
I can almost guarantee an immediate improvement in cutter life.
If this practice already in play, get them to try other drill forms and coatings. At those sizes I find air pressure (and nozzle close) directed right at hole opening the best insurance. Coolant types can help. I like kerosene on aluminum, some water base emulsions do not release the smallest chips.

[Clifford]

I have watched Curtis and his giggler/wife and their precious pooch/safety officer for over a year now.
his work and mine before retirement are on parallel. waiting for this weeks episode............