Friday, January 20, 2012

Hardened Steel

Bad news: Broke a cutter.
Good news: Found dad's packet of 90 degree engraving cutters
Bad news: Kept breaking them until I only had two left
Good news: Discovered that the steel I am using is much harder than some of the other steel I got.
Bad news: I want to wait for this one to be finished, but it's cold in the workshop
Good news: I have a small office and a fan heater, so I'll be warm in no time
The cutter broke to some extent on the first couple of passes on all of the above attempts and got steadily worse from right to left.

2 comments:

Roy Goodell said...

I cut titanium with tiny carbide cutters all the time. Titanium machines a lot like stainless steel. I use 0.1mm cutters.
If I machine deeper than 0.03mm/pass and 0.3mm/sec they break. And I'm running these cutters between 70 and 100k rpm. So I'm not surprised you break cutters....

Yea, I also digitize the surface (to maintain a constant cutting depth)

an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op_9kf_IoPo

Dan Heeks said...

Thanks Roy. When you say 0.1mm cutters, do you mean the diameter of the effective flat at the end of an engraving cutter? What angle do the tips of your cutters have?
I am now cutting mild steel, so I hope it will cut quicker and deeper than this. I am trying tonight with 0.1 depth of cut ( instead of 0.2mm ) with 0.66mm/sec feed, but I only have 7k rpm maximum. You must have a very specialize machine to have 100k? ( mine is just a milling machine, so not specifically an engraving machine )