Working with mild steel.

[Wal]

Hi all,

I've always shied off working with anything ferrous - until fairly recently, where I've had to cut a few parts from steel - I can't tell you exactly what grade, it's fairly generic mild steel covered in mill scale that you'd typically buy off ebay, or that's issued when getting profiles flame-cut etc. Nothing exotic.

First thing to say is that yes, you have to be realistic with cutting parameters and you're simply not going to run as quick as what you'd perhaps like to, but since most of us aren't in production and in no real hurry, then whatever - as long as the parts get made, right?



Here's a vid of a bit of adaptive clearing and a finishing pass on the flange nut shown above:



And here's the finishing pass on the flat spanner:



Even managed to make myself a suds tray with a 1000x500x1mm sheet - this was a bit slower/trickier to machine, but still yielded some decent results:



(Gaps were filled with Chemical Metal before paint).

Anyway, my point is this - I was massively surprised at being able to make myself decent useable parts in steel using my mini-mill and my router. Drilling was fine at 8krpm on the spindle plunging at 0.15in/sec using a 6mm drill bit - three flute and two flute carbide end-mills intended for aluminium worked just fine. Yes, yes - it's all a bit of a hack, but it's a place to start and I'll be buying some more relevant tooling and refining my methods as I go. Pretty cool though.

Wal.