News

Milling Titanium 6AL4V

Recently, one of our customers tried our Union Tool endmill in Titanium 6AL4v.

He was profiling with our 5 flute 6mm diameter endmill with an 18mm flute length.  The radial engagement was .007" or .19mm.  Axial engagement was .500" or 12.7mm.  He was running our endmill @ 4500 RPM  @ 110 IPM or 2794 mm per minute.  He ran 40 parts and was extremely happy with the performance.

Drilling 1018 Steel Application

Recently we had an application drilling and counterboring 1018 steel for a customer where they had to drill 9 holes 3/8" x 2" deep.  The machine was CAT 40 spindle with 300 PSI coolant thru the tool.  The parts were fixtured in a vise- 5 parts to the vise.  The customer was originally peck drilling and his cycle time for the 5 parts was > 1hour.  Running our carbide drills (coolant fed) 3/8" diameter x 8Xdiameter, @ 5000 RPM @ .012" per rev, we drilled 45 holes in < 5 minutes.  We then plunged a 1/2" diameter endmill  3/4" deep to create a counter bore @32" per minute.  We ran into a problem with the chip control with the 1/2" endmill.  So we then specified a 180 degree drill to drill the c'bore @ 2387 RPM @ .007" per rev.  This took < 3 seconds per hole or 3 minutes for all 45 holes.  The customer told me right there from his experience that we saved him 48 minutes in cycle time per 5 parts.  

 

Tapping in Ductile Iron

A while back, we ran into a situation where a customer was tapping cast iron on a flange.  There were 2 tap sizes M-16 x 2.0mm coolant thru tap as well as M20 x 2.5mm coolant thru tap.  There were 6 holes to be tapped in the part.  We were able to double the RPMs from 2300 to 4600 thus cutting the cycle time in half.  Our customer also reported to us that they got 90 parts for tool life versus the 30 parts with a German competitor tap.  Obviously, they were very pleased.

Milling Sintered Ceramic

Recently we were approached by a customer to mill sintered ceramic.  Is it possible, the company, an electronics company, could not hold the tolerances required by their customer by molding the ceramic.  There are tools available that have the capability to mill, drill and even threadmill both sintered ceramic as well as sintered carbide.  The challenges are tool life and the end product being stable ( not breaking or cracking).  The customer's product was only .030" thick and it was very delicate.  We were able to drill the hole and also open up the window in the ceramic without cracking it and generate the tolerances that the part required.  Due to the size of the parts, we employed a 1mm x 2flute endmill to profile mill the window in the part.  We also used a 1mm drill to drill the parts.  Our customer was able to mill and drill 8 parts with minimal wear on the tools.

Plunge Milling or Hi-Feed Milling

Plunge milling or Hi-Feed Milling?  That is the question! LOL!!  Actually it depends on the application.  e.g.  A while back, at a mold shop, the customer was looking at Hi-Feed milling some molds on a 5 axis vertical spindle CAT 40 machining center. The mold was of a good size and it had heavy scale on it as the material was 15-5 PH Stainless Condition 1025.  the Hi-Feed cutter was 1" x 2 flute taking .050" DOC.  The customer estimated that it would take 4 hours to mill around the periphery of the mold.  We brought in a 3" x 6 tooth square shoulder face mill and by stepping over 30% of the mill by .100" radial depth of cut, we were able to reduce the cycle time from 4 hours to 1 hour.  Also, the customer did not have to index the inserts for the job.  But it all depends.