Having a go with F360....

[needleworks]

Sorry I can`t be of more help mate, I`m still just getting to grips with F360 as well ! You seem to be making good progress though for the short time you`ve been using it

[jamesgates1000]

Depends if you are making out of an oversized block or plate that is already at the correct thickness.

If using plate I would use a another piece of plate underneath as a fixture, clamp at both ends then....

Mill slot and drill holes(making sure to drill into plate below,
Interpolate two large bores with a slot drill and chamfer
Use a T shaped clamp in both bores to hold while milling the profile.

Then put a couple of pins or drills in the holes and use them to align the part when you flip it over.
Clamp with T clamps again.

Counterbore and mill the two slots that break into bores.

[Davek0974]

Thanks, not thought about a fixture below with the alignment holes :)

I was going to use precision tooling plate, used it before and accuracy has been good on thickness.

What about bore finish - mill outright or mill rough and boring head? Its a consideration because of the massively different clamping methods needed for a using a boring head.

I don't think ultimate precision is needed, i was allowing +0.25mm clearance on bores, maybe more?

[jamesgates1000]

I have been using the tooling plate a lot recently too and have also found the thickness and flatness really good.
I just use another piece of tooling plate as the fixture.
Using a milling cutter would be fine to finish the bore. If you were making a batch I would say use separate tools for roughing and finishing though.

[Davek0974]

Thanks, when i get the mill up and running this will be one of the first projects - a real "pucker-up, suck it and see" moment i think. ;)

Will use a mill tool, probably change though as the pocket will be ripped with a two-flute and finish passes are better with three or four flute tools.

[Davek0974]

Top and bottom plates drawn, just the spacer block left.

The smaller hole in the bottom will take a 20mm spigot that will lock into an R8 collet in the spindle.




Metal arrived today and the mill is almost ready to go.

[Davek0974]

Ok, first job :)

Something i used to make manually in small batches, would use a 5C collet block horizontally in vise, cut one side, rotate 90deg cut next and so-on. The diameter of the tool created a radius at the root of the square part.



Gonna have a go with CAM, modified the vise jaws so i can clamp a blank vertically and work round tip using a ball-nosed cutter.

Blanks are 1/2"dia and tip is 5.5mm sq. It also 605m36 steel so slightly harder than plain mild.

I have it drawn up in F360 and worked out the feeds/speeds in HSMAdvisor which gave me 420rpm, 84mm/min on a 12mm HSS tool. DOC is 11mm - 6mm radius and 5mm straight.

F360 wants to take the whole cut in one pass - would you feel happy with that, seems heavy. Although i selected 2d Adaptive, i think its too simple to work any magic on and it seems to have created a standard path.