T slot feed speed

I break more tiny T slot cutters than anything else.

Anybody know of feed speed DOC guidlines for small T slot and woodruff cutters?

I'm doing a 0.140" slot in hard 4140 in the morning using a carbide T slot cutter.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend
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Are you pre-cutting the slot before you Tee it ? Not that I've ever cut one in metal , but when I was doing some dovetail cuts it made a big difference to have most of the waste gone before I dug out the dt cutter .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

Jeez. Good luck. You're pushing it.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Run at a speed that's appropriate for the cutter material, work material and hardness.....same as with any other milling cutter.

Feed at a rate that does not deflect the cutting tool (necked shank) past it's elastic limit, removing alternate cutter teeth to allow maintainence of a reasonable chip thickness (IPT) if need be.

Flood the living piss out of it and/ or use a strong steady blast of compressed air to prevent recutting of chips and to elimimate heat build up at the cutting interface.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

I've exceeded the elastic limit MANY times.

I like the idea of removing alternate teeth, only one tooth cutting at a time would be possible with today's job.

I'll set up the cold air gun for air blast this time. I hate the noisy SOB plus the air compresser can hardly keep up. Should work really well here.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

maintainence of

I would not go that far, too much shock from intermittant full unloading.

3 teeth is probably a better minimum, keeps lash out of the spindle gearing, splines and so forth.

Good luck.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

splines and so forth.

I was able to find the tech manual for the cutter: 150 SFPM, 0.0005 chip load. So I ran 1200 RPM and 3.5 IPM on this 1/2" six flute cutter.

Purred like a kitten.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

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