Grooving rubber mats

get a grooving iron. Old time dirt track racers used to put their own favourite pattern of grooves in slicks. Its like a super heavy duty soldering iron, with a u-shaped (groove shaped) metal heated knife.

freeze it. and not just your home freezer freeze (altho that may work). with smaller peices i just use dry ice.

laz

I sure like the "grooving iron" idea. But if you don't have one, try using your 4 1/2" angle grinder with a rather coarse, hard wheel. I have used this general technique to turn rubber things on the lathe. I tried using traditional single point tools and they just didn't work.

Pete Stanaitis

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Matt Vorne wrote:

It will work better if he can arrange a jet of cooling air to blow over the cut.

I've ground rubber rollers with a lathe and toolpost grinder. It's no fun but it can be done.

Thanks Bill. That sounds like it will do the trick.

Or if you don't have one, take it to a truck tyre shop and they'll have one. Truck tyres tend to have four lifetimes as they wear; new, recut, remoulded, then recut again.

Liquid nitrogen and a high rpm with a two flute endmill.

Flood the mat, wait 30 seconds and go like hell.

Gunner

Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. Benjamin Disraeli

IME, freezing rubber to machine it doesn't work. As soon as you start cutting, tool friction heats up the rubber and it turns, well, "rubbery" again. I suppose if you could used liquid nitrogen as a coolant (how would that work in your coolant pump? You wouldn't need any mold inhibitor, at least), you could do it, but I've tried to machine rubber corks before, and freezing them with liquid N2 beforehand was a disaster. Grinding worked much better for me.

-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I d> > I have a 1" rubber mat that I need to cut large channels into (.5" in > > depth).

It works for bandsawing, but milling is beyond it.

Works in at least two shops I service. One does custom mudflaps.

Gunner

Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. Benjamin Disraeli