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[gcode]

The new thread mill feature look promising.
I programmed a toolpath to put a 1-14UNS thread in a really hard face mill arbor.
I used the new gradual lead in option.
They haven't run it yet. I'm curious to see it run.

They ran this toolpath this morning.
It worked really well
You define the minor Ø as well as the major
On the Lead In/Out page you set Gradual and a percentage
and check Start and End at Center.
The % value controls the radius value of the start of the cut.
I used 75%. 100% actually plunged straight into the material before starting the arc,
which defeats the purpose of the gradual entry.
It feeds to the defined % value then arcs into the cut with a 180% helical arc.

It increases to cycle time a little, but when the tool is a $350 solid carbide thread mill
an extra 20 seconds is irrelevant if it increases tool life.

[Thee Byte]

They ran this toolpath this morning.
It worked really well
You define the minor Ø as well as the major
On the Lead In/Out page you set Gradual and a percentage
and check Start and End at Center.
The % value controls the radius value of the start of the cut.
I used 75%. 100% actually plunged straight into the material before starting the arc,
which defeats the purpose of the gradual entry.
It feeds to the defined % value then arcs into the cut with a 180% helical arc.

It increases to cycle time a little, but when the tool is a $350 solid carbide thread mill
an extra 20 seconds is irrelevant if it increases tool life.

What brand of thread mills u running G?

[gcode]

What brand of thread mills u running G?

I normally run Carmex
Their Thread Mill Wizard is the bomb.

In this case I don't know what I was running
It was an emergency and I ran what I could find in the tool crib.. 
a no name  5/8" x 14 pitch 1.35" LOC solid carbide 5 flute with a gold coating of some sort.
The face mill arbor was very hard,,, but the resulting threads look really nice

[Thee Byte]

I normally run Carmex
Their Thread Mill Wizard is the bomb.

In this case I don't know what I was running
It was an emergency and I ran what I could find in the tool crib.. 
a no name  5/8" x 14 pitch 1.35" LOC solid carbide 5 flute with a gold coating of some sort.
The face mill arbor was very hard,,, but the resulting threads look really nice

Always complimenting yourself huh?
Jk good job G like usual, I like the direction the software is going it's getting robust for mill, very robust.

[Thee Byte]

Are you always cutting titanium, or other stuff too?

[gcode]

Are you always cutting titanium, or other stuff too?

no.. most of out work is really big A36 mild steel
There is one impeller we build that starts as a 7000 pound forging
and finishes as a 1300 impeller
We have been getting quite a bit of Ti lately and we used to do a lot of inconel
but that work as dried up lately.

[Thee Byte]

no.. most of out work is really big A36 mild steel
There is one impeller we build that starts as a 7000 pound forging
and finishes as a 1300 impeller
We have been getting quite a bit of Ti lately and we used to do a lot of inconel
but that work as dried up lately.

I love cutting mild steel, especially on a conventional lathe, I like to crank up the rpm real high take a big doc and make springs for 8 hours on one insert corning with it glowing red the whole time.

I like it in the cnc too, cuts like butter, I actually prefer working steel to aluminium. I remember a coworker next to me seeing I was strong at cutting steel he would just give me any big steel parts and take the ones with not much roughing, I didn't mind at all


I bet you are cutting some monster parts over there

[gcode]

I bet you are cutting some monster parts over there

my personal best is a 110K pound casting that left as a finish part weighing 80K pounds
that was a very stressful 3 months

[SuperHoneyBadger]

really big A36 mild steel

Maybe because you guys are making fuckin huge parts, but I've had really shite batches of A36 in the past 2 years. Buddy over here calls it "Volkswagen Steel", always whining it's melted beetles and toasters. I believe it some days.

[gcode]

Maybe because you guys are making fuckin huge parts, but I've had really shite batches of A36 in the past 2 years. Buddy over here calls it "Volkswagen Steel", always whining it's melted beetles and toasters. I believe it some days.

yes... like everything else, steel isn't what it used to be, especially the cast parts we've been getting recently.
we have one series of castings that have had a 100% NDT failure rate this year.
They are so bad we are having to run the lathe work +.100/side, NDT them, do weld repairs, then run the finish lathe lathe ops.

[CNCAppsJames]

Of our customers that machine castings, the overwhelming majority are complaining more and more about casting quality. It used to "only" be geometry complaints. Over the last few years the complaints have become not only geomtery.complaints but also material quality. Porosity is out of control for a lot of them. 

One customer in particular told me some specifics about their castings; for years they came in nominal +/- 5% now they are exclusively at or near the bottom of the tolerance band so things don't clean up. They HAVE to use this specific casting house for some reason (not sure where it is). They had to get a manufacturing variance to add spray welding to the process... they have to do this with about 50% of the castings with a 1-2% increase every year. 

But of.course, the paperwork says the lot is "in conformance".  

My only hope is all these questionable parts don't cause REAL problems. 

[Thee Byte]

Of our customers that machine castings, the overwhelming majority are complaining more and more about casting quality. It used to "only" be geometry complaints. Over the last few years the complaints have become not only geomtery.complaints but also material quality. Porosity is out of control for a lot of them.

One customer in particular told me some specifics about their castings; for years they came in nominal +/- 5% now they are exclusively at or near the bottom of the tolerance band so things don't clean up. They HAVE to use this specific casting house for some reason (not sure where it is). They had to get a manufacturing variance to add spray welding to the process... they have to do this with about 50% of the castings with a 1-2% increase every year.

But of.course, the paperwork says the lot is "in conformance".

My only hope is all these questionable parts don't cause REAL problems.

Most castings are for a leaky valve or something from what I've seen, see the same configurations at every job shop

[Thee Byte]

I'm sure there are lots of other cast too, but I'm thinking a lot of it is that

[Jeff]

I love cutting mild steel, especially on a conventional lathe, I like to crank up the rpm real high take a big doc and make springs for 8 hours on one insert corning with it glowing red the whole time.

Ever tried the Kennametal Fix8 inserts? Those things are insane. They're a better, beefier version of the old Sumitomo Ace-Fix inserts that I loved back in the day.
You can take a massive cut and feed it pretty aggressively. One caveat though, those inserts don't like approaching shoulders all too well, they tend to chip. That's the only downside, but man they're fun to use.

[Thee Byte]

Ever tried the Kennametal Fix8 inserts? Those things are insane. They're a better, beefier version of the old Sumitomo Ace-Fix inserts that I loved back in the day.
You can take a massive cut and feed it pretty aggressively. One caveat though, those inserts don't like approaching shoulders all too well, they tend to chip. That's the only downside, but man they're fun to use.

Usual my parts were oversize and large cuts weren't possible, I don't remember if we had those inserts, I liked some of the Mitsubishi inserts, kennametal is also good, I remember using a lot of those seco boxes growing up tho