My adventures in Aluminum continue.
I have managed some success with the 4mm bit using conventional milling and a healthy dose of WD-40. With this setup I have been able to comfortably, accurately and reliably cut at 0.5mm DOC 500mm/min without any issues and producing flawless mirrored cuts.
So…of course, i cannot leave well enough alone. I have a LOT of aluminum to cut so I decided to try a 1/4" 2 Flute bit. GWizard declared 16090 RPM at a feedrate of over 2000mm/min. Crazy thought I, but, I thought, what the hell, gave it a shot.
Cuts came out pretty good! But it was spitting chips out that were hot enough to burn, and I think it may have been dusting any chips it was recutting, or vaporizing the WD-40, not sure which. In any case I don’t think I’ll do that again.
Anyone got a good cheap source for 1/4" single flute bits?
Congrats, pour yourself a bug glass of wd-40 and watch it cut. My own experience is 2 fluke end Mills work nice with aluminum. 1 fluke may grab in the corners and pull the cutter off path.
I think I must have messed up GWizard. I recalculated again and came up with much more reasonable numbers so will try those tomorrow.
I am considering building one of these tomorrow to drip feed WD-40 on the cut. What do you think?
I buy the big can ig wd-40 4L / 1 gallon and use a small 4 L sprayer for gardening and a small spay pump. And my friend gave me some synthetic coolant concentrate 20/1 mix with water. But that smells funny after a day or two.
I haven’t tried it, but wouldn’t wd40 work in the coolant mister available from smw3d? @Brandon_Satterfield
I can’t comment much on the single flute 1/4. It seems that you would need to slow your speed down quite a bit since you would have a greater material removal rate (compared to 4mm). I have ran into issues recutting chips that are stuck/hidden in corners and hand the tool get gummed up. What kind of aluminum are you cutting?
I do think you might be on to something though using 1/4"… It may evacuate the chips better than my favorite two flute 1/8". I have always thought a system that misted right at the tool tip, and blew a stream of air directly ahead of the cutter would be the best route
@Ben_Delarre really glad you have things going your way, and great looking cuts. I’m learning from you now. Going to try conventional milling again. I must ask though brother, if you’ve got 4mm down, why change?
Build is looking good, can’t wait to see the final product!!
Yeah, @Mark_Leino the mister could work. I will say though Ben, be careful misting WD-40 brother, especially if your burning it, keep good ventilation going, we need you around!
From what I’ve read wd-40 in a mister is not so great an idea. It does have volatile compounds so misting it might be pushing your luck. Plus the breathing problems. I’ve generally decided to stay away from mist I think.
@Brandon_Satterfield main reason to move to 1/4" is that I have 9x 3/4" deep pockets I need to cut so I figure 1/4" will make that easier with lower deflection. Also I have a LOT of cutting to do and not much time to do it in and if 1/4" let’s me go faster then that’ll help a lot.
I have used conventional routers on aluminum for long time. I like 2 flute 1/4" cutters with soapy water as a lubricant. You can flood the cut to control the heat and there is no smell. You have to build a system to recirculate and filter the cutting fluid however. I take big cuts and slow feeds. 1/4 x 1/4 cut at .5" per second or a little slower feels about right when routing by hand.
I really need to get back to pushing the limits again, you guys are cutting way faster with more depth of cut than I have ever even tried! I didn’t think cutting aluminum with 1/4" with any speed was even possible. Any videos?
@Mark_Leino I’ll capture one in a minute…here’s the mess I just made…
This was 1/4" 45 helix 2 flute bit. 1/8" doc at 254mm/min. 10k rpm. It cut. But it wasn’t too happy about it. The chip size is huge though and I think much better for it, it wasn’t burning my arms or smoking the kerosebe in the WD-40. Sure didn’t sound good though and definitely some chatter.
I haven’t cut any aluminum for a couple months, but there is still aluminum chips everywhere. They never seem to go away. I will say those chips are pretty large. How long are your tools lasting you? Oh, and I’m curious… What are you making?
I’m building 3 double pendulums for an art piece for this years burning man. They’re going to be 8ft diameter (2x 2ft arms linked). The hubs where each pendulum attaches to the last will be 6" across and have 99 LEDs inside, while the arms will have 76 more LEDs spread along their length. The entire thing will have accelerometers and microcontrollers inside making the lights spin and move in response to the motion of the arms.
Assuming of course I successfully mill the huge stock of aluminum in my garage.
This high helix bit is scaring me. If i don’t cut deep then it produces very tiny very very hot chips and smokes my wd-40. If i cut deep I get a bit of chatter. I think I’ll probably need to do some kind of trochoidal milling if I want to use it effectively.
@Ben_Delarre that is freakin’ awesome!
Fyi estlcam has trochoidal milling, can’t say I have tried it though. What cam are you using
I’m using CamBam, there’s a plugin for it to do troichoidal but I’ve not had any luck with it thus far. Keeps crashing on me. I may switch over to HSMExpress in solidworks but thats another learning curve.
I know this is a little off topic, but does cambam have options for plasma cutting and torch height controllers?
Your inspiring me to get back to cutting aluminum. I have a few sheets of 5053 I picked up awhile back and never ended up using…
