Hi Everyone. My name is Josh. I am pretty new to this site as well as CNC machining. I bought my first machine a few weeks ago with zero experience with CAD or CNC. I pick things up quickly and have been making soft jaws for practice. Its been going really good. Soft jaws come out great with a mirror finish (not that its necessary but a goal of mine). So yesterday i decided to try and make one of the parts i want to make. It has a recessed pocket that is pretty visible on the finished part. The part is 1.5" wide x 18" long and the interior pocket (floor) is 1.25" x 17.75". I can get it to machine great but it leaves the tool path along the bottom. Can’t feel it but you can see it. Is there any special “floor” end mill or indexable end mills designed to give more or a mirror finish and not the tool path finish? I read something about a wiper insert for end mills. Would that help?
Lastly do you guys use a torque wrench when tightening down the vices? I was told that is good practice for repeatability of tolerances. If so what torque lbs do you usually strive for? Thank you ahead of time.
Josh G
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Welcome to the site.
Surface finish is all about the right Tooling along with Feeds and Speeds. So first I go by my spindle speed the faster you can run the better. Cuts cost upfront knowing that you can run more efficient than other shops.
What material are you running?
What tool are you using?
Machine Capabilities?
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Hello and Welcome!
I use 55 foot pounds this depends on the vice ad your setup one setting dose not fit all projects.
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Lots of variables that can blemish the pocket floor. If you do not evacuate your chips, then you can mar your finish. You might try leaving .004" for a finishing pass on the bottom, making sure you have removed all chips before doing the finish pass. If you could air blast, this might help. Good quality flat endmill will help deter poor surface finish, Don’t use the same email that you pocketed out the material, bring in a brand new endmill
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Thanks guys. I should have given you a little more info on what i am using and doing. I was machining 6061 aluminum and I have a HAAS VF5 with an 8100 rpm spindle. I have flood coolant and programmable coolant location to help get the coolant to where it should be. I was using a Maritool 1/2" 1.125 LOC 3 flute ZRN hi helix finisher end mill for the pocket and floor. i did use the same tool for roughing and finishing but its a pretty new tool. I left .02 on the floor for the finish cut. Maybe i should have taken a lighter cut? The interior pocket floor wasn’t very deep so it got plenty of flood coolant into cut zone. I can get almost perfect mirror finishs with my shell mill and can get great side wall surface finishes. just the floor on larger areas when you don’t want to see the tool path. I can upload a picture if that would help? Thanks for your help!!!
Josh
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