Need help, buy or build to cut steel, stainless steel, titanium etc

[EddyCurrent]

Fantastic reply man. I like the fact you are being honest straight up with me so I am dropping this fantasy. I guess for now I might just stick to what I know and will revisit this idea in the future perhaps. Thanks guys you have all been very helpful

Jazz, the OP said this, so go with this comment and forget the other, it's just easier.

[Jonathan]

Cutting stainless steel and titanium with a 500x500mm machining area is definitely challenging, especially if you need to do a lot of it on a limited budget. However, if we're only talking about a few parts a week (so speed is not an issue), then I wouldn't rule it out altogether. The machine mentioned earlier is about the size you need and was designed to be 'sufficiently strong' to cut mild steel (not stainless). Although I've not tested it much, at least from a stiffness point of view it does appear to meet that specification. I measured the stiffness of that machine (parallel to the X and Y axes) and it's comparable to my milling machine - i.e stiffer in one axis and a bit weaker in the other. Stainless steel and titanium both require a (relatively) low speed spindle, so for me to try cutting these at any reasonable rate would require a different spindle. However, since the stiffness is similar to my milling machine and I know that my milling machine tolerates cutting stainless steel, I can be reasonably confident in predicting that the 'sufficiently strong' machine would be able to cut stainless steel with the right spindle. Just to emphasize - I don't mean it would cut at a high rate but quick enough to be useful for the occasional part. Looking for a big enough milling machine would still be you best bet, but you'll need a lot of space for it.

Perhaps the main difficulty with cutting titanium and stainless steel, compared to aluminum, is that in addition to being much harder materials they also work harden. This limits the extent to which you can get away with just taking smaller cuts, so the machine must meet a certain level of stiffness before you can do anything useful (except perhaps engraving).

[JAZZCNC]

Jazz, the OP said this, so go with this comment and forget the other, it's just easier.

Eddy it's hard when I get Folks who only 6weeks ago didn't know the differance between nema23 & nema 24 motors and pointing someone to Bloody Pin routers to Mill Titanium telling me I'm being negative just because I give somebody who freely commented they have no experience with CNC a very realistic idea of what there about to get into.!

Helping hisn't always about helping to build.? Sometimes it's in peoples best interests not to build and look at alternative solutions and in this case I feel it's in OP best interest not to build.

I'm just starting to get slightly pissed off that my words are being taken out of context and twisted into something completely differant.!!