Those who hide or don't take the time to train or help people are the ones killing the trade. Everyone has to start somewhere and usually it's from ground 0
Aluminum bronze has many of the same issues with deflection and warping as this titanium did, but on a much lighter scale obviously. I never needed to change inserts more than once a job for instance. I came to the same processes and procedures as you did when I had to figure it out myself with the light cuts and flipping it every pass. Too bad this video wasn't out before I had to do those jobs years back. Hopefully someone will watch this before they need it!
Peter, another great video. The inner stress of materials is a massive pain to deal with. Your process and adaptation wins the day. Thank you for the share!
Got into manufacturing 3 years ago stumbled upon this channel and now im learning so much i like the way u point out all the mistakes that might occur. I have learnt most of the things on my own and i feel like i can avoid so many mistakes just watching you explain thank you
After almost 40 years of machining I definitely feel more educated on machining processes after each video I watch. This guy is very humble and even admits his faults. It's so refreshing to learn more about my trade from this Master Tradesman. Appreciate your content and may even take credit for some of the tips tricks I've learned from you at my position as a machinist.
I always enjoy listening to a skilled machinist that understands the effects of material removal. The experience of cutting a wide variety of materials and understanding the tool pressure being introduced to the stock. The importance of cutting tool selection in what would seem like a straight forward facing operation can only be explained by a machinist that understands stock removal. The hardest part of making money on a part like this is quoting the price to the consumer. Great video thanks for taking the time
You are absolutely correct and in over 40 years of machining I never had to machine 3D printed titanium plate which a customer sent to me.Asked for a quote and sent it before I quoted luckily I came across this video.It's definitely going to be a do and charge.😁
Yeah, the stresses put into the stock as received from the rolling mill really can cause a lot of problems with warping. And, of course, the flipping of the parts side-to-side to even/balance out the stresses help a lot. I personally haven't used enough insert tooling to experience worn inserts adding to the stress in a plate, but it certainly makes a lot of sense. Figuring out a procedure to successfully overcome the material's internal stresses while meeting the required dimensions/tolerances is a lot of what makes a good Machinist, as shown here. Good job!
Thanks Peter, I been a machinist for 25 years and I got to the point to change paths/careers. Watching your videos for the pass month I miss the machining processes. My wife saw me watching your videos and she ask me if I miss machining. I do.
I like this channel BECAUSE you're doing your thing. I appreciate your skill and experience, and the patient way that you explain things to those of us without the background to understand what you're doing or why you're doing it in a certain manner. I think the comments are mostly supportive and interesting. But I like that you address those negative comments.
I just had to do the same sort of a thing in some Alloy 800H, had to take a 12" x 6" 1" thick plate and make a 3/8" thick plate out of it, thankfully I didn't have to hold super tight thickness tolerance but they wanted it as parallel as I could get it. I ended up using a button insert cutter and I found that worked pretty good. I had a really sharp super alloy grade and just indexed them every cut for the last couple passes after roughing it down to around 1/2" the day before and letting it 'rest' and spring overnight. I was able to get it to stay around .003" parallel with some .01" finish passes. I wish I had some of those fancy clamps, they are now on the list of things I need. I suffered with some blocking bars and regular vises. Thanks for making these videos!
Just to take all variability out of the process, I would suggest using an inch-pound torque wrench on your clamps in a set pattern when doing a run like that just to remove a variable.
Yikes that seems like someone on the other end really goofed up lol. I have had my fare share of struggles with something similar and finally got our customer to let us stress relief the material as all the removal was happening on one side. Finally figured out if I machine very slow with new tooling and stress relieved material I was easily able to hit spec.
Excellent and very informative video. Usually what we see is most of the stresses are in 1/16 outer layer of the part. Once we get down under the crust, things settle down especially when removing material evenly from both sides. Your clamps are the real heroes in this op. Also not over tightening the screws, because that would bow the center of the part. I had to machine down some stainless plates and what I did was remove material evenly while using mitte-bite clamps but right before the finishing opps, I used positive insert cutter to dust off the top and at the same time we used a hard rubber backing material so the material would not distort. Another option is to get it blanchard grind. :)
flashbacks of doing that with thin brass in grinder with double sticky tape. thanx for the videos and showing what it takes not just heavy cutting. good job.
You are a Saint for taking the time to explain your Process. I certainly Appreciate it, even though i have been Machinist since 1985, because there is No easy way to machine Titanium especially Flat...
Being a tool and die maker here, I can fully appreciate your craft. Don’t sweat the haters. There will always be some arm chair champion out there wanting to claim their title. We know the job and what it entails. Working with titanium is always fun! Lol! I love those clamps you made in the last video. Your work is accurate and on point. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for taking the time to walk us through this process. I studied this video, going back and replaying parts to make sure I understood and have really learned a lot.
It's great seeing the videos where things don't go as planned, that's where the learning is. Thanks again those clamps are bad ass everytime I see them
Try shimming the part, I machine almost exclusively stainless, when we are worried about a part warping we shim the air gaps under the part, clamp, and machine trying to keep cool, and then when you flip there’s nothing to worry about, great video!
Very valuable video, thank you. Lumber always develops internal stress when it dries. When you split the wood with a saw, the stress bows the wood, and then you just straighten out the cut with a jointer. This is a great process, since the only reference surface is the one being planed. The backside is just kind of floating in the woodworker's hands so there is hardly any stress from "workholding". Having my background in woodworking, I went for a similar approach when I had to face some big aluminum plates. I'd epoxy the plate to a fixture with only little weight to hold it down while the epoxy cured in order to keep the plate's shape and prevent springback once I'd separate it from the fixture. Then I'd flip the plate and face the other side and be done in 2 setups. Worked out ok, but I must have gotten lucky that there were no significant internal stresses in the plate which would have curved it despite the gentle workholding. Can't imagine how it would have worked out if the material would have also developed stress from the cutting.
Another great and informative video showing the use of your new clamps you designed and how in machining you keep the part from warping. Great to see you sharing your skills and how you go about tackling the different projects you work on
Thanks for sharing your procedure and thought processes. You mentioned the cutter putting stress into the part, how about residual stress from rolling and cooling of the plate? My impression has been distortion like that comes mostly from residual stress in the material. We fought some copper plates, ~24x24" finished to 3/8", and those suckers were all over the place. Eventually got it good enough, flat when sucked down on a vacuum fixture, but not to what we'd have hoped for. Such as life
Yes some of the stress is from manufacturing. I think I mentioned that in the video. But often it’s what we do that often contributes to the problem. Copper is more difficult than some people realize. I would rather machine this titanium than copper.
@@EdgePrecision Took your advice and read the comments before posting. I hope that I NEVER have to machine copper again! I have given some thought as to what may work. Maybe supercool the part in liquid nitrogen. Even bubblegum cleaves cleanly when frozen. Feasible? If anybody in the audience has tried it, by all means, share the Kit-Kat.
Thanks for another great and educational video Peter, its a shame that a small uneducated minority make these throw away comments not realising the time and energy that goes into making these brilliant videos, the content is always next level, giving detail and info that only a true machinist appreciates..👏👍👌.... Always look forward for your next upload, thanks again Pete
Peter, can you possibly give us an idea of how you bid a project like this? Were you aware of the limitations the customer provided material was going to impose and the extra time? Just curious how you typically deal with such things. Thank you!
This customer actually somewhat misrepresented this material that got supplied in the email on the job. Unfortunately I was not given the full documentation and it was there. So in a way I got stuck with this extra work. But the job will still go OK. I can’t show any more about the actual parts machine work. But the videos on the fixturing and this video will make up for this extra work. That is one good side effect of making these videos.
I haven't had the chance to finish your video yet but I will say titanium just plan moves. I don't doubt that some of it is your inserts but dam, it just moves too. I work in an aerospace machine shop and we use Ti a lot. We do a lot of roughing cycles to give it a chance to settle before we finish. We have a lathe job that is mostly finished on one side including the bore that is +/-.003 but if you put a dial bore gauge on it before you finish the backside it will say +.005. Finish the back and it comes right in on size. Looking forward to finish your video tomorrow and hear how you solved your issues.
I have also had this problem with titanium. When boring bored with fine finishes the measuring tools leave scratches in the finish. It is soft for this. You have to be carful with the bore gauges.
@@EdgePrecision This is the other half of my 3Dprinted titanium job besides the plates.They are round just like a pipe about 10"dia x 7" long and after fully machining wall thickness is 1/2" on one and 5/16" on the other.Don't have a six jaw chuck and worried about distortion in a four jaw chuck.Tolerance is + - 0.004"
I think there's two great joys in life: making tools and buying tools. I appreciate that you show the thought that goes into doing something "simple" that has many hidden complexities. A question for you: do you have apprentices or people that you are teaching? I'm a mechanical designer for a company with our own machine shop, and it's always interesting to me both learning how we do certain tasks and how we train new people both in the engineering office and the shop floor. Your videos are an excellent resource; I think most of the time people don't get taught everything they should because the teachers don't want to spend all that time doing the teaching, now it's possible to "outsource" some of that to people on UA-cam like yourself. Thanks
@UC7SYADMAPVnDdJPUMo8I8Ew You are obviously not much of a teacher by your own admission and posted results. Engineers do not refer to themselves as " a engineer", " a engineer/maker" betrays your lack of education in basic English. Because there is so much to absorb, the entry level machinist should be taught the basics to be "entry level" before starting an apprenticeship. That fact is why we developed trade schools and Industrial Arts. At the end of three years under your tutelage the initial stage seems all you have been able to accomplish. A qualified Industrial Arts teacher far exceeds your qualifications to teach regardless of any specialized knowledge or skill you may or may not have. Persons such as yourself are often employed part time for helping out in non-credit introductory classes to give the curious a feel for the subject. It sounds like you subscribe to everyone using a made-up self aggrandizing title such as janitors using the title "maintenance engineer" and garbage truck workers as "sanitation engineers". Feel free to insert your school of engineering here.
Thank you Peter, tricky problem with an un-obtainium material! Clamping pressure of those differential screws is approximately 36:1 on the thread times the torque applied so very easy to over tighten and bow the workpiece.
I love the rando piece of scrap paper w the extremely important numbers on it! I roll the same way w post-its. Like don't throw out that napkin it's got the launch codes on it🤣🤣
I am always thankful for your sharing. It is going to be interesting how you control the warping when you start on the actual part. I hope you can share parts of the process.
I hope you can talk about the methods to prevent warping on the actual part. I understand from the earlier video that we were not going to be able to see machining of the actual part. Thanks again for hard work.
I wonder if just the heat from the dull inserts caused it to warp more.? I wonder if milling to size and mechanically straightening would have taken less time and insert cost?
With the amount of flood coolant, I don’t think heat was a issue. As far as trying to mill it to size and straighten it. You would have to use this procedure anyway because the distortion would be so great it would pull out of the clamps and ruin the thickness. Besides I wanted to get the part out of the middle of the .800 thickness where there will be less manufacturing stress in the material. This will help the next operations to remain flatter. If you straighten something in a press. You reintroduce stress that could give trouble later in the machining.
@@EdgePrecisionWe machined pretty long welded steel parts to flatness and internal coolant was absolutely necessary, because the heat of the cutting with flood coolant cause to much stress. So this can be a factor, but I dont believe it would make much difference here. Glad you didnt had problems with vibrations, on the welded steel parts we made vibrated a lot, so we had to use a little bit worn insert on the finish pass, but not to much worn.
I see lots of comments about the machining. But I was completely distracted by the Cheetos in the back ground in the start of the video...... love your videos. keep it up.
Perhaps a bit of hammer forging might save material. This is addresses the "General Machining" problem rather than you specifics. With the plate, I wonder whether vacuum clamping would/could provide enough force to make one side flat and then flip it over.
I have never had titanium ground before. It’s not magnetic so on the Blanchard grinder you would have to surround it with steel for the mag chuck. Also there is somewhat a fire hazard. But with the coolant that may not be a problem. I’m not sure about this part. But a long time ago when I made some Boeing parts they didn’t allow abrasive type machining on some of their parts. But it could be worth checking into.
Those clamps that you made worked like a charm! I'd like to see you do a solid model assembly and demonstrate the mechanics of them using animation .Thanks for sharing.
PETER, I definitely want the toe clamps explained in more depth, please! They're very interesting and I want to thoroughly understand them! THANK YOU!!! :)
I have 2 of the same face mill. The inserts have so many sides it’s awesome. I have found that when one starts to go though, you gotta turn it or the rest will start to go pretty quick. Great tool anyhow.
Hi Peter I'm indicating a insert drill on a 2 axis lathe and I was able to get the centerline but was told that I need to dial the y axis. Would you know how to go about that?
Dear Peter, I have done simillar tasks like yours with vacuum workholding. Had quite satisfying results with that. This was on a vertical mill with steel and aluminium. Whats your opinion on this with a horizontal and titanium?
you have a great knowledge and its always a joy listening to you, however, since its a thin "flat" piece of stock don't you think its better be fixtured on a different machine with horizontal table with vacuum fixturing for simpler facing op?
Great video 👍 When you explained the cutting effects on the material I thought a old fashioned metal plainer may have been a way to size the thickness.
Possibly but any tool puts stress back into the material. Just because a planer is moving in a linear direction instead of rotating doesn’t change that. But it is possible that a better cutting geometry could be ground on the planers tool. Also if a HSCo tool could be used that could actually be better than carbide in this case.
@@EdgePrecision will HssCo really do better ? We do a lot of High Manganese and not a single grade of hssco have worked so far. Also, why no high speed ceramic tooling in this Peter ? Seen lot of other videos using them in such high temperature alloys.
@@vishrutvora2465 On a old planer machine with the low speed it runs. The HSCo tool would cut cleaner and put less stress into the material. I knew a shop here in Texas the machined a lot or titanium with Hss tools. They also used oil for coolant. Not the modern way of doing things, but possible. I don’t think I would use ceramic tools on titanium. They usually are run dry (milling tools) this could be a fire hazard.
Thanks for another great video Peter. I’m not a machinist but I enjoy watching machinist videos; I follow quite a few of your types on UA-cam. I really enjoy the problem solving and creative fixturing that goes into some jobs. Your explanations as to why you sometimes start with large stock makes perfect sense to me. Do you ever use the chips from your jobs for your forging hobby? Or are those materials too exotic most of the time to be of use to you?
So far I have never used any shavings for my blacksmithing projects. I don’t do that Damascus knife/sword type stuff that you would use them for. Or at least not yet.
Did you try out using a high feed mill to rough it down then finish it on the last cut with the facemill? Usually the cutting pressure they create is axial on the tool so it tends to push the part into the fixture and minimize it pulling into the cutter.
I've had very good luck doing this strategy on parts from most materials other than aluminum and it tends to not put too much heat into the parts and you can run a decent SFM and chipload without too much cutting force
High feed milling works very good in steel and stainless steel. As the material gets more difficult like exotic materials it begins to get more difficult. I’m not saying it won’t work because I didn’t try it. But in general I have found it tends to put stress into the material. It would push the part down but with the slow surface speed required for this material. I’m a little skeptical that it would work better. I do wish I had a scrap piece I would try it just to see.
@@EdgePrecision i don't really do a ton of work with more exotic material, so i don't have any practical experience on plates like this. Not having an extra setup part is unfortunate as i too would like to have known how it would come out
It could, but I would be a little worried about this vertical orientation. I have used a vacuum chuck on a vertical mill. If it looses grip its not to serious. It sort of throws the stock sideways. Not good but not as bad as this vertical position. Falling into the cutter. So there is that. Also a vacuum chuck/plate just like a magnet chuck (For magnetic materials) won't necessarily guarantee flatness. Now this stock starts out thick so it would probably be OK. But if the stock is thin enough of flexible enough. It will just pull it down to the flat surface of the fixture. but when you release it, it returns to it's original shape. Or stress can also be revealed in the material that warps it again once it is released from the chuck. This kind of thing is difficult to control in machine work.
@@EdgePrecision Thank You so much for the reply. I learn so much from Your videos. I really appreciate You sharing Your knowledge. I absolutely love Your channel. I very recently started my machining journey. I have a little column mill. A 6040 cnc router and im building a cnc lathe at the moment. I tlstarted hand scraping everything. I got myself a very high quality surface plate and some tools and it is just an amazing journey to be on and im always motivated by channels like Yours.
It probably is bowing in both. In the shorter direction it’s less noticeable. The tool path direction won’t make a difference. Besides with mr clamping method there is no room to clear the cutter around the clamps and bar. One other consideration is you are wasting more none cutting time by changing direction more times with vertical passes if you could do them.
We were having 14 ft diameter propellers made for a high-altitude airship. The vendor thought solid aluminum blades would be the fastest way to get prototype blades. They fought with stress in the material, stress induced by machining, stress induced by aging and stress due to working 14 hour days trying to get a net shape across a 7ft piece of surfaced aluminum. The process was; make a surfacing pass, remove the blade from the fixture, shot peen it, vibration and stress cycle it, fail CMM in-process inspection, modify something, repeat! Ultimately, we had to use an commercial carbon fiber airship propeller.
I think the key to understanding the whole deal with double sided and plenty point inserts is that insert price is mostly dependant on the volume of the carbide.
More knowledge in this guys head than 1/2 the machining industry. Titan puts out glamor knowledge. This guy shows you his process and how he makes it work. He put a vice in a freakin Mazak for crying out loud and showed us the machining process!
I'm so happy when I found this Sunday night surprise. It would've been a little nicer to see more of the actual machining. I just like to see the tool spin and chips fly.
as a headphone user: thanks for denoise =) as a machinist that knows titanium: i feel your pain, the material is always right... good job as always, thanks for sharing knowledge
What would happen if you just clamped the piece on the tombstone as it lay, so it would lay bowed/cupped (depending on which way it was oriented), and you would not tap the piece down flat (maybe shim the back with shim stock for support) for initial roughing passes? I would think the first passes would skim the deformation out and not "hide" it like what is happening when the plate is tapped down onto the tombstone and then clamped. I am thinking about how in woodworking you have to use a jointer to remove all deformation in the piece of wood before thickness planing the wood. If you run a distorted piece of wood through a planer, you will just transfer the deformation from one side to the other and back and forth, this seems to be akin to what you are doing when you tap the piece down and it is not "jointing" the plate.
A vacuum plate or even a magnetic chuck wont guarantee flatness. They will suck a bowed part down to their top surface but once it is released it will go back to its original shape. Some mag chucks for surface grinders have a adjustable magnetic force just to reduce bowing the part. There just is no easy way to get something to lay flat without putting additional force on it. Even the way I'm doing it here isn't prefect. Actually nothing is. Even when making large telescope mirrors they take into account the earths gravity.
@@EdgePrecision thank for answer. I have thought that parallelism is more important in this case than flatness. You make the best cnc channel:) greeting from Poland.
I did once talk to a machine shop that still ran a couple of very large old planers. They told me they were indispensible for getting thin plates flat. I asked why they did not mill these plates - the guy said milling creates a local heat zone, much different from planing.
I’m not a machinist but I’ve watched this video and I have a question…why do you push the material tight to the fixture if it’s bowed to start with? I mean isn’t that what’s keeping the bow in the material? So now with the material under tension it will retain the bow until the clamps are released. After you machine the surface and release the clamps, the tension will be released and the bow will return.
Actually the issue is that the machining itself is introducing new stress into the part. If you tried to machine away thesquirrel, without flattening the stock against the tombstone, you'd end up with a part that started getting very squirrelly, and definitely wouldn't keep the consistent thickness... you'd have thin parts.
I’m trying not to tighten the clamps to much. As I said in the video. But they will put a little stress back. Mostly what you are seeing is the stress in the material making it move (not all) when the clamps are loosened. The idea is as it gets closer to finish size this diminishes to a acceptable point. Than in the final cuts it’s necessary to tap the part down to make sure it is down on the fixture. Machine work is often reducing error a little at a time until you achieve the desired result. In everything there is error (nothing is perfect) it’s just getting it in the tolerance specified. Hope that makes sense.
Would be a good job for a blancher if the material was magnetic. That pulling material down and keep it from crawling on you is tuff stuff , kind of balancing out weld-mints on a boring mill
The manual 4-jaw better suites the kind of work I do. Also its smaller in diameter and doesn't require a draw bar. So without the draw tube in the spindle I get the full Spindle bore of 6.650" in diameter. For my work the speed it takes to chuck a part isn't as important as getting things to run true. Usually the parts I run will be in the machine sometimes up to a week at a time. Also a manual 4-jaw chuck will hold on to a part better than a hydraulic chuck. A hydraulic chuck looses clamping force with speed and the weight of the jaws. A manual 4-jaw doesn't have that problem.
Not sure about titanium, but I make some 304 SS plats that are .4 by 6 by 12.5 the part gets about a 4 inch chamfer on the 6 inch width both sides, so any ways I hold the 3/4 plate machine around the profile using a dynamic tool path with a 1/2 endmill running around 200 ipm and .02 step over I then release the vice and go at least .03 under the skin using a 1/2 endmill with a .03 rad, And cut the face. I then do the same typ of cut dynamic the back off .03 plus with the step over .02 that normally takes about 2 hours I then skim .015 each face again with the 1/2 .03 rad endmill. Doing it that way in a vice I can hold .0015 flatness and a .002 thickness and parallel. That process doing with a fly cutter would take the guys that use to do it about 5.5 hours so I took off 3 hours doing it the way I do them. Now again it’s 304 so totally different material but it might be worth trying some time for u on titanium. Anyways great video as per usual take it easy stay safe.
At a previous job I had some big aluminum plates, 226x75" and 0.75 ±0.005. One of the most challenging features I've ever done. We had to use an ultrasonic thickness gage to measure the middle to.
We made aluminium test coupons where I last worked. They were approximately the size of an A4 sheet of paper. A huge 5-inch face mill with inserts in every other pocket was used to cut them. The tool was too big to fit into the tool changer so we had to put it in by hand- the tool weighs over 30 pounds so it's not an easy task. We used a vacuum fixture to hold the plates. One day we had a huge problem with plates bowing due to internal stresses and we ended up modifying the program so we could flip the plates over before the last two machining passes.
Thanks for the video Peter it couldn't have come anytime better.I just got a job exactly like the one you showed very similar in length and thickness but only 4" wide.I have never machined 3D printed Titanium plate before so was a little nervous not knowing how it's going to behave.Will be machining on a vertical machining centre.I noticed you mentioned about 10"/min feed but didn't notice the cutting speed.It would be very helpful if you could give me those values rather than experimenting.Thanks again.
I ended up on 200 rpm on this 3” diameter cutter. That works out to 157 sfm. But this depends a lot on the tools inserts grade. Also I have never machined printed titanium either so I’m not sure what to tell you. But this speed would be a safe starting point I think.
@@EdgePrecision The only indexable insert cutter I have is 2" dia. and for machining aluminium.Unfortunately it is 90 deg.edge not like the one you have.Thank you for the info,I'll give it ago only way to find out.
Not a machinist but I can honestly find myself fascinated by what the cost of that plate as suppled by the customer could be (knowing your cost for that material would vary wildly). What the cost and positive/negative issue with sending the material out for stress relief would be. But my gut feeling is Peter knows full well that even with stress relief he is not going to simply be able to flatten a face and hog everything off the other face of stress relieved material and come out with a part in tolerance because of the issue he explains. The tooling/cutting re-introduces stresses into the material as its cutting and that stress has to be accommodated. Non-machinist I hear people say Titanium is "gummy" so while you'd run dead sharp tooling at all times the simple fact is after the first chip cut your tool is dulling which means every subsequent cut is introducing more heat and displacing some super small amount of material to a forging/forming/rolling effect. I'd imagine those plates at .800 must be worth 3, 4, 5, thousand dollars a piece? What would stress relief cost? What is the cost of 5 hours of machining to get them flat? My guess is an individual who has owned the shop he is now leasing a bit of to operate in (asked by the new owner), the customer who supplied the material, knows that the costs alternative to this course of action would be higher. Coming from the wood world, EVERYTHING in this video made total sense.
I think this customer had this material to make some other parts already. So they sent it to make these parts. This set of parts are sort of a R&D set. So I guess if they are successful they will get the proper material for production.
@@EdgePrecision No question there. Obvious the customer had the material on hand. My issue was with all the comments that shoulda been stress relieved, etc.. Cost of the material alone, and I can only imagine even stress relief wouldnt have let you hammer into the material with no concern for movement hogging away that much stock on the customer supplied material. Like I mentioned, I can only imagine that material supplied by the customer represents thousands of dollars in saved material costs on their part.
I really really want to see the design of the clamps, since I've been doing more and more 5-axis cutting, and dealing with some huge hunks of material for the machines in our shop.
Like one of the other commenters I also thought about having them stress relieved but in your response you mentioned that you can't just send certified material out to be heat treated. Could you please talk about certified material a bit and explain what it is, why it needs to be certified, and what you can and can't do with it. Certified material is something I have had just about nothing to do with and would like to understand more about it - thanks Peter.
It just means that the material should be exactly what it is to composition, batch and is traceable to where it came from. If there is a failing part made by 1 shop and another shop making the same part perfectly fine both with certified material then the problem is with the first shop. Now if there is no cert material then who's to say that 1 shop is using an unsuitable grade of material for that part due to lack of stock or cheaping out.
I burn up inserts on my slab flattening bits for my router just taking to big of a bite in Mesquite wood. Can you imagine what i'd do with these machines? Yeah... i better just stay retired! Thnx Peter.
Appreciate what you said in the start of the video about views and such. Using the 10 turns per insert must help for the cost of production when this is only starting the stock. Now if I was doing this I would want to just subtract on my H offset and not g54 (or what you're using) because zero is zero and my height is the offset I am changing. Why change the way you did? Great video as always
I set the tool lengths for this machine with the Speroni tool setter on the bench. Once set for a tool it should never be changed (except for a slight wear). Unless the tool is changed. Than the part offset is set in the fixture offset being used in the Z in a negative direction from the Z home position. Also if you use a spindle probe this is the way you have to set the offsets. This is the proper way to set the height offset for tools. That way you can run mutable setups and not have to worry about that tools offset. Or run many fixture offsets on a single setup for the same tool length. If you keep changing your tool length you can’t be sure it’s right the next setup. With what I was doing here I was moving the zero of the program in to what I knew was my target. It sounds like you need to learn how to use fixture offsets. This could open up new ways to do your machine work. Using for instance mutable vises to do more than one part at a time.
Possibly, but dealing with material you have certifications. You can’t just be sending material out to be heat treated. It will no longer meet the customers specs.
Why didn’t you go with a more free cutting positive-positive style cutter, yes less indexes per insert, but less cutting pressure. Like a Sumitomo WGX? And did you try the AH8025 grade from tungaloy?
@@EdgePrecision the insert does but cutter body is negative on that style. I was just curious. I know in job shop work the “best” tool for the job is sometimes the one you already have! If not constrained by time or money would that tool still have been your choice is what I was really getting at.
Would a job like this Titanium plate be a candidate for a vacuum plate hold-down system along with your newly made (beautiful) hold-down clamps. Just wondering 🤔
The thing about a vacuum plate is you can’t get a part truly flat on one. It’s like a magnetic chuck. Both will force a warped part down to their flat surface. Than when released the part will spring up. Some mag chucks on grinders you can control the strength of the magnet to minimize this. I would also worry just a little using a vacuum chuck in this vertical position.
I dunno about you guys, but I get a constant education from Peter. We are fortunate he shares all of his knowledge with us!
Those who hide or don't take the time to train or help people are the ones killing the trade.
Everyone has to start somewhere and usually it's from ground 0
Always educational interesting videos
F*uckin right on about that.
Years of this game on display.
Aluminum bronze has many of the same issues with deflection and warping as this titanium did, but on a much lighter scale obviously. I never needed to change inserts more than once a job for instance. I came to the same processes and procedures as you did when I had to figure it out myself with the light cuts and flipping it every pass. Too bad this video wasn't out before I had to do those jobs years back. Hopefully someone will watch this before they need it!
Peter, another great video. The inner stress of materials is a massive pain to deal with. Your process and adaptation wins the day. Thank you for the share!
Got into manufacturing 3 years ago stumbled upon this channel and now im learning so much i like the way u point out all the mistakes that might occur. I have learnt most of the things on my own and i feel like i can avoid so many mistakes just watching you explain thank you
After almost 40 years of machining I definitely feel more educated on machining processes after each video I watch. This guy is very humble and even admits his faults. It's so refreshing to learn more about my trade from this Master Tradesman. Appreciate your content and may even take credit for some of the tips tricks I've learned from you at my position as a machinist.
always love hearing the knowledge and experience. keep at it and hopefully i can learn as much as you have forgotten!
Really, really impressive results. That's a big piece to be ending up flat within 0.001, let alone in titanium..
I always enjoy listening to a skilled machinist that understands the effects of material removal. The experience of cutting a wide variety of materials and understanding the tool pressure being introduced to the stock. The importance of cutting tool selection in what would seem like a straight forward facing operation can only be explained by a machinist that understands stock removal. The hardest part of making money on a part like this is quoting the price to the consumer. Great video thanks for taking the time
You are absolutely correct and in over 40 years of machining I never had to machine 3D printed titanium plate which a customer sent to me.Asked for a quote and sent it before I quoted luckily I came across this video.It's definitely going to be a do and charge.😁
Yeah, the stresses put into the stock as received from the rolling mill really can cause a lot of problems with warping. And, of course, the flipping of the parts side-to-side to even/balance out the stresses help a lot. I personally haven't used enough insert tooling to experience worn inserts adding to the stress in a plate, but it certainly makes a lot of sense. Figuring out a procedure to successfully overcome the material's internal stresses while meeting the required dimensions/tolerances is a lot of what makes a good Machinist, as shown here. Good job!
Thanks Peter, I been a machinist for 25 years and I got to the point to change paths/careers.
Watching your videos for the pass month I miss the machining processes.
My wife saw me watching your videos and she ask me if I miss machining.
I do.
You sir are a true craftsman that works veryhard to keep the world up and running thank you for sharing
That was cool. I am glad to see the torque for the drill is no issue and the milling works fine too.
Thanks for sharing!
I like this channel BECAUSE you're doing your thing. I appreciate your skill and experience, and the patient way that you explain things to those of us without the background to understand what you're doing or why you're doing it in a certain manner.
I think the comments are mostly supportive and interesting. But I like that you address those negative comments.
I just had to do the same sort of a thing in some Alloy 800H, had to take a 12" x 6" 1" thick plate and make a 3/8" thick plate out of it, thankfully I didn't have to hold super tight thickness tolerance but they wanted it as parallel as I could get it. I ended up using a button insert cutter and I found that worked pretty good. I had a really sharp super alloy grade and just indexed them every cut for the last couple passes after roughing it down to around 1/2" the day before and letting it 'rest' and spring overnight. I was able to get it to stay around .003" parallel with some .01" finish passes. I wish I had some of those fancy clamps, they are now on the list of things I need. I suffered with some blocking bars and regular vises.
Thanks for making these videos!
I look forward to each of your videos and appreciate the insight you give. Thanks for your time and effort to film, edit, and share your work.
I certainly appreciate the insight into the technical nature of the machining processes. Can't thank you enough!!!!
Thanks for this video. My machining experience level is about 2 out of 10. You help many folks regardless of their experience.
Thanks for taking the time :) This is not my industry, but I find it fascinating!
Just to take all variability out of the process, I would suggest using an inch-pound torque wrench on your clamps in a set pattern when doing a run like that just to remove a variable.
You are the reason my salary and interest and my anthusiasm for machining keeps growing
Yikes that seems like someone on the other end really goofed up lol. I have had my fare share of struggles with something similar and finally got our customer to let us stress relief the material as all the removal was happening on one side. Finally figured out if I machine very slow with new tooling and stress relieved material I was easily able to hit spec.
Excellent and very informative video. Usually what we see is most of the stresses are in 1/16 outer layer of the part. Once we get down under the crust, things settle down especially when removing material evenly from both sides. Your clamps are the real heroes in this op. Also not over tightening the screws, because that would bow the center of the part. I had to machine down some stainless plates and what I did was remove material evenly while using mitte-bite clamps but right before the finishing opps, I used positive insert cutter to dust off the top and at the same time we used a hard rubber backing material so the material would not distort. Another option is to get it blanchard grind. :)
flashbacks of doing that with thin brass in grinder with double sticky tape. thanx for the videos and showing what it takes not just heavy cutting. good job.
You are a Saint for taking the time to explain your Process. I certainly Appreciate it, even though i have been Machinist since 1985, because there is No easy way to machine Titanium especially Flat...
Being a tool and die maker here, I can fully appreciate your craft.
Don’t sweat the haters. There will always be some arm chair champion out there wanting to claim their title.
We know the job and what it entails. Working with titanium is always fun! Lol!
I love those clamps you made in the last video.
Your work is accurate and on point.
Keep up the great work!
I really appreciate you taking the time to share not only what you're doing but the thought process behind it.
Thank you for taking the time to walk us through this process. I studied this video, going back and replaying parts to make sure I understood and have really learned a lot.
It's great seeing the videos where things don't go as planned, that's where the learning is. Thanks again those clamps are bad ass everytime I see them
Try shimming the part, I machine almost exclusively stainless, when we are worried about a part warping we shim the air gaps under the part, clamp, and machine trying to keep cool, and then when you flip there’s nothing to worry about, great video!
Very valuable video, thank you.
Lumber always develops internal stress when it dries. When you split the wood with a saw, the stress bows the wood, and then you just straighten out the cut with a jointer. This is a great process, since the only reference surface is the one being planed. The backside is just kind of floating in the woodworker's hands so there is hardly any stress from "workholding".
Having my background in woodworking, I went for a similar approach when I had to face some big aluminum plates. I'd epoxy the plate to a fixture with only little weight to hold it down while the epoxy cured in order to keep the plate's shape and prevent springback once I'd separate it from the fixture. Then I'd flip the plate and face the other side and be done in 2 setups.
Worked out ok, but I must have gotten lucky that there were no significant internal stresses in the plate which would have curved it despite the gentle workholding. Can't imagine how it would have worked out if the material would have also developed stress from the cutting.
Another great and informative video showing the use of your new clamps you designed and how in machining you keep the part from warping. Great to see you sharing your skills and how you go about tackling the different projects you work on
Thank you for sharing the wisdom you gained from this job. I have many questions but I'll think it through and ask you the best one.
Thanks for sharing your procedure and thought processes. You mentioned the cutter putting stress into the part, how about residual stress from rolling and cooling of the plate? My impression has been distortion like that comes mostly from residual stress in the material. We fought some copper plates, ~24x24" finished to 3/8", and those suckers were all over the place. Eventually got it good enough, flat when sucked down on a vacuum fixture, but not to what we'd have hoped for. Such as life
Yes some of the stress is from manufacturing. I think I mentioned that in the video. But often it’s what we do that often contributes to the problem. Copper is more difficult than some people realize. I would rather machine this titanium than copper.
@@EdgePrecision
Took your advice and read the comments before posting. I hope that I NEVER have to machine copper again! I have given some thought as to what may work.
Maybe supercool the part in liquid nitrogen. Even bubblegum cleaves cleanly when frozen. Feasible? If anybody in the audience has tried it, by all means, share the Kit-Kat.
Thanks for another great and educational video Peter, its a shame that a small uneducated minority make these throw away comments not realising the time and energy that goes into making these brilliant videos, the content is always next level, giving detail and info that only a true machinist appreciates..👏👍👌.... Always look forward for your next upload, thanks again Pete
Also good insights Peter. I spend a lot of time working out how I'm going to make large uncooperative slabs of material very very flat and parallel.
Peter, can you possibly give us an idea of how you bid a project like this? Were you aware of the limitations the customer provided material was going to impose and the extra time? Just curious how you typically deal with such things. Thank you!
This customer actually somewhat misrepresented this material that got supplied in the email on the job. Unfortunately I was not given the full documentation and it was there. So in a way I got stuck with this extra work. But the job will still go OK. I can’t show any more about the actual parts machine work. But the videos on the fixturing and this video will make up for this extra work. That is one good side effect of making these videos.
Another great job Peter excellent lesson thanks 😊
Thx Peter, interessting video! Interessting material. 👍
I learned to never question a master , that also applies to watching Peter .
Really enjoyed this video. The way you explain thigs just make sense!
I haven't had the chance to finish your video yet but I will say titanium just plan moves. I don't doubt that some of it is your inserts but dam, it just moves too. I work in an aerospace machine shop and we use Ti a lot. We do a lot of roughing cycles to give it a chance to settle before we finish. We have a lathe job that is mostly finished on one side including the bore that is +/-.003 but if you put a dial bore gauge on it before you finish the backside it will say +.005. Finish the back and it comes right in on size. Looking forward to finish your video tomorrow and hear how you solved your issues.
I have also had this problem with titanium. When boring bored with fine finishes the measuring tools leave scratches in the finish. It is soft for this. You have to be carful with the bore gauges.
@@EdgePrecision This is the other half of my 3Dprinted titanium job besides the plates.They are round just like a pipe about 10"dia x 7" long and after fully machining wall thickness is 1/2" on one and 5/16" on the other.Don't have a six jaw chuck and worried about distortion in a four jaw chuck.Tolerance is + - 0.004"
Yeah, the surface hardness is relatively low on virgin material. That's why titanium parts are typically anodized after machining.
I think there's two great joys in life: making tools and buying tools. I appreciate that you show the thought that goes into doing something "simple" that has many hidden complexities.
A question for you: do you have apprentices or people that you are teaching? I'm a mechanical designer for a company with our own machine shop, and it's always interesting to me both learning how we do certain tasks and how we train new people both in the engineering office and the shop floor. Your videos are an excellent resource; I think most of the time people don't get taught everything they should because the teachers don't want to spend all that time doing the teaching, now it's possible to "outsource" some of that to people on UA-cam like yourself.
Thanks
Thank you. I don’t really have a apprentice per say. But I do quite often help the guys here at Centerline.
@CMTeamCobra "a Engineer/Machinist" That's quite a title. I suspect an Industrial Arts teacher would have better results.
@UC7SYADMAPVnDdJPUMo8I8Ew You are obviously not much of a teacher by your own admission and posted results. Engineers do not refer to themselves as " a engineer",
" a engineer/maker" betrays your lack of education in basic English.
Because there is so much to absorb, the entry level machinist should be taught the basics to be "entry level" before starting an apprenticeship. That fact is why we developed trade schools and Industrial Arts. At the end of three years under your tutelage the initial stage seems all you have been able to accomplish. A qualified Industrial Arts teacher far exceeds your qualifications to teach regardless of any specialized knowledge or skill you may or may not have. Persons such as yourself are often employed part time for helping out in non-credit introductory classes to give the curious a feel for the subject.
It sounds like you subscribe to everyone using a made-up self aggrandizing title such as janitors using the title "maintenance engineer" and garbage truck workers as "sanitation engineers".
Feel free to insert your school of engineering here.
Thank you Peter, tricky problem with an
un-obtainium material!
Clamping pressure of those differential screws is approximately 36:1 on the thread times the torque applied so very easy to over tighten and bow the workpiece.
Beautiful work! Keep up the great videos!!
I love the rando piece of scrap paper w the extremely important numbers on it! I roll the same way w post-its. Like don't throw out that napkin it's got the launch codes on it🤣🤣
I am always thankful for your sharing. It is going to be interesting how you control the warping when you start on the actual part. I hope you can share parts of the process.
Unfortunately this is as much as I can show on this part. I can’t show you all the actual part.
I hope you can talk about the methods to prevent warping on the actual part. I understand from the earlier video that we were not going to be able to see machining of the actual part. Thanks again for hard work.
@@EdgePrecision bummer, love seeing the setup on the pre-work at least.
I wonder if just the heat from the dull inserts caused it to warp more.? I wonder if milling to size and mechanically straightening would have taken less time and insert cost?
With the amount of flood coolant, I don’t think heat was a issue. As far as trying to mill it to size and straighten it. You would have to use this procedure anyway because the distortion would be so great it would pull out of the clamps and ruin the thickness. Besides I wanted to get the part out of the middle of the .800 thickness where there will be less manufacturing stress in the material. This will help the next operations to remain flatter. If you straighten something in a press. You reintroduce stress that could give trouble later in the machining.
@@EdgePrecisionWe machined pretty long welded steel parts to flatness and internal coolant was absolutely necessary, because the heat of the cutting with flood coolant cause to much stress. So this can be a factor, but I dont believe it would make much difference here. Glad you didnt had problems with vibrations, on the welded steel parts we made vibrated a lot, so we had to use a little bit worn insert on the finish pass, but not to much worn.
Just found this channel today this is very cool
I see lots of comments about the machining. But I was completely distracted by the Cheetos in the back ground in the start of the video...... love your videos. keep it up.
One other person made a comment about those. So your not alone.
Perhaps a bit of hammer forging might save material. This is addresses the "General Machining" problem rather than you specifics. With the plate, I wonder whether vacuum clamping would/could provide enough force to make one side flat and then flip it over.
Always good stuff from you Peter. Cheers
How do you figure out how much you can cut on your machine with recommended feeds? I’m curious if their is a formula for HP belt or gear driven?
Would Blanchard grinding work? I know you would have to pay another shop but would it be cheaper in the long run? Just wondering.
I have never had titanium ground before. It’s not magnetic so on the Blanchard grinder you would have to surround it with steel for the mag chuck. Also there is somewhat a fire hazard. But with the coolant that may not be a problem. I’m not sure about this part. But a long time ago when I made some Boeing parts they didn’t allow abrasive type machining on some of their parts. But it could be worth checking into.
Those clamps that you made worked like a charm! I'd like to see you do a solid model assembly and demonstrate the mechanics of them using animation .Thanks for sharing.
PETER, I definitely want the toe clamps explained in more depth, please!
They're very interesting and I want to thoroughly understand them!
THANK YOU!!! :)
He did a whole video making them. Pretty much explains everything
@@Awfultyming yes, I saw it. I need more on the threads used...
@@artmckay6704 if you want the CAD file just say it.
@@Awfultyming I wouldn't know what to do with a CAD file. I'm not a machinist but I'm a fan and I love the subject matter.
The wood worker in me is frustrated that you just can’t rip that plate in half. Do you keep the ti chips separate for recycling / scrap value?
Look up the price of Titanium scrap. Not so good.
@@chrisleech1565
But it would be an interesting component in canister 'damascus' with1084 powder.
@@stanervin6108 don't forget the chili peppers. I guess you watch Shurap :-)
@@chrisleech1565
Yep! And the herbal tea break during heat treat!
The clamps are pure genius.
como siempre un trabajo perfectamente echo como buen profesional que eres.gracias por compartir tu conocimiento..un saludo
I have 2 of the same face mill. The inserts have so many sides it’s awesome. I have found that when one starts to go though, you gotta turn it or the rest will start to go pretty quick. Great tool anyhow.
I have mostly used this tool in 316 stainless. In that material it works very well. For this it’s the tool I had. As I said in the video.
Hi Peter I'm indicating a insert drill on a 2 axis lathe and I was able to get the centerline but was told that I need to dial the y axis. Would you know how to go about that?
Dear Peter,
I have done simillar tasks like yours with vacuum workholding. Had quite satisfying results with that.
This was on a vertical mill with steel and aluminium.
Whats your opinion on this with a horizontal and titanium?
you have a great knowledge and its always a joy listening to you, however, since its a thin "flat" piece of stock don't you think its better be fixtured on a different machine with horizontal table with vacuum fixturing for simpler facing op?
Great video 👍 When you explained the cutting effects on the material I thought a old fashioned metal plainer may have been a way to size the thickness.
Possibly but any tool puts stress back into the material. Just because a planer is moving in a linear direction instead of rotating doesn’t change that. But it is possible that a better cutting geometry could be ground on the planers tool. Also if a HSCo tool could be used that could actually be better than carbide in this case.
@@EdgePrecision thanks for replying each material will give different results etc,but nothless would be fun trying old school plainer👍
@@EdgePrecision will HssCo really do better ?
We do a lot of High Manganese and not a single grade of hssco have worked so far.
Also, why no high speed ceramic tooling in this Peter ? Seen lot of other videos using them in such high temperature alloys.
@@vishrutvora2465 On a old planer machine with the low speed it runs. The HSCo tool would cut cleaner and put less stress into the material. I knew a shop here in Texas the machined a lot or titanium with Hss tools. They also used oil for coolant. Not the modern way of doing things, but possible. I don’t think I would use ceramic tools on titanium. They usually are run dry (milling tools) this could be a fire hazard.
Thanks for another great video Peter. I’m not a machinist but I enjoy watching machinist videos; I follow quite a few of your types on UA-cam. I really enjoy the problem solving and creative fixturing that goes into some jobs. Your explanations as to why you sometimes start with large stock makes perfect sense to me. Do you ever use the chips from your jobs for your forging hobby? Or are those materials too exotic most of the time to be of use to you?
So far I have never used any shavings for my blacksmithing projects. I don’t do that Damascus knife/sword type stuff that you would use them for. Or at least not yet.
Did you try out using a high feed mill to rough it down then finish it on the last cut with the facemill? Usually the cutting pressure they create is axial on the tool so it tends to push the part into the fixture and minimize it pulling into the cutter.
I've had very good luck doing this strategy on parts from most materials other than aluminum and it tends to not put too much heat into the parts and you can run a decent SFM and chipload without too much cutting force
High feed milling works very good in steel and stainless steel. As the material gets more difficult like exotic materials it begins to get more difficult. I’m not saying it won’t work because I didn’t try it. But in general I have found it tends to put stress into the material. It would push the part down but with the slow surface speed required for this material. I’m a little skeptical that it would work better. I do wish I had a scrap piece I would try it just to see.
@@EdgePrecision i don't really do a ton of work with more exotic material, so i don't have any practical experience on plates like this. Not having an extra setup part is unfortunate as i too would like to have known how it would come out
awesome video as always. just a question but would a vacume fixture plate not be ideal for machining a plate like this?
It could, but I would be a little worried about this vertical orientation. I have used a vacuum chuck on a vertical mill. If it looses grip its not to serious. It sort of throws the stock sideways. Not good but not as bad as this vertical position. Falling into the cutter. So there is that. Also a vacuum chuck/plate just like a magnet chuck (For magnetic materials) won't necessarily guarantee flatness. Now this stock starts out thick so it would probably be OK. But if the stock is thin enough of flexible enough. It will just pull it down to the flat surface of the fixture. but when you release it, it returns to it's original shape. Or stress can also be revealed in the material that warps it again once it is released from the chuck. This kind of thing is difficult to control in machine work.
@@EdgePrecision Thank You so much for the reply. I learn so much from Your videos. I really appreciate You sharing Your knowledge. I absolutely love Your channel. I very recently started my machining journey. I have a little column mill. A 6040 cnc router and im building a cnc lathe at the moment. I tlstarted hand scraping everything. I got myself a very high quality surface plate and some tools and it is just an amazing journey to be on and im always motivated by channels like Yours.
Yet another great video 👍💪☺️
Why does it bow in the long axis? I wonder if changing the cutting path to go up and down would have any effect.
It probably is bowing in both. In the shorter direction it’s less noticeable. The tool path direction won’t make a difference. Besides with mr clamping method there is no room to clear the cutter around the clamps and bar. One other consideration is you are wasting more none cutting time by changing direction more times with vertical passes if you could do them.
We were having 14 ft diameter propellers made for a high-altitude airship. The vendor thought solid aluminum blades would be the fastest way to get prototype blades. They fought with stress in the material, stress induced by machining, stress induced by aging and stress due to working 14 hour days trying to get a net shape across a 7ft piece of surfaced aluminum. The process was; make a surfacing pass, remove the blade from the fixture, shot peen it, vibration and stress cycle it, fail CMM in-process inspection, modify something, repeat! Ultimately, we had to use an commercial carbon fiber airship propeller.
I think the key to understanding the whole deal with double sided and plenty point inserts is that insert price is mostly dependant on the volume of the carbide.
More knowledge in this guys head than 1/2 the machining industry. Titan puts out glamor knowledge. This guy shows you his process and how he makes it work.
He put a vice in a freakin Mazak for crying out loud and showed us the machining process!
you are your own boss,, you don't have anyone telling you how to do it.. that's freedom
Wouldn’t taking a couple of those inserts out help by free cutting? Thanks for a great video!
I'm so happy when I found this Sunday night surprise. It would've been a little nicer to see more of the actual machining. I just like to see the tool spin and chips fly.
A master class by The Master.
as a headphone user: thanks for denoise =)
as a machinist that knows titanium: i feel your pain, the material is always right...
good job as always, thanks for sharing knowledge
What would happen if you just clamped the piece on the tombstone as it lay, so it would lay bowed/cupped (depending on which way it was oriented), and you would not tap the piece down flat (maybe shim the back with shim stock for support) for initial roughing passes? I would think the first passes would skim the deformation out and not "hide" it like what is happening when the plate is tapped down onto the tombstone and then clamped.
I am thinking about how in woodworking you have to use a jointer to remove all deformation in the piece of wood before thickness planing the wood. If you run a distorted piece of wood through a planer, you will just transfer the deformation from one side to the other and back and forth, this seems to be akin to what you are doing when you tap the piece down and it is not "jointing" the plate.
Have you concider make clamp it on vacum table ? Should it be less problem with flatness?
A vacuum plate or even a magnetic chuck wont guarantee flatness. They will suck a bowed part down to their top surface but once it is released it will go back to its original shape. Some mag chucks for surface grinders have a adjustable magnetic force just to reduce bowing the part. There just is no easy way to get something to lay flat without putting additional force on it. Even the way I'm doing it here isn't prefect. Actually nothing is. Even when making large telescope mirrors they take into account the earths gravity.
@@EdgePrecision thank for answer. I have thought that parallelism is more important in this case than flatness. You make the best cnc channel:) greeting from Poland.
I did once talk to a machine shop that still ran a couple of very large old planers. They told me they were indispensible for getting thin plates flat. I asked why they did not mill these plates - the guy said milling creates a local heat zone, much different from planing.
I’m not a machinist but I’ve watched this video and I have a question…why do you push the material tight to the fixture if it’s bowed to start with? I mean isn’t that what’s keeping the bow in the material? So now with the material under tension it will retain the bow until the clamps are released. After you machine the surface and release the clamps, the tension will be released and the bow will return.
Actually the issue is that the machining itself is introducing new stress into the part. If you tried to machine away thesquirrel, without flattening the stock against the tombstone, you'd end up with a part that started getting very squirrelly, and definitely wouldn't keep the consistent thickness... you'd have thin parts.
I’m trying not to tighten the clamps to much. As I said in the video. But they will put a little stress back. Mostly what you are seeing is the stress in the material making it move (not all) when the clamps are loosened. The idea is as it gets closer to finish size this diminishes to a acceptable point. Than in the final cuts it’s necessary to tap the part down to make sure it is down on the fixture. Machine work is often reducing error a little at a time until you achieve the desired result. In everything there is error (nothing is perfect) it’s just getting it in the tolerance specified. Hope that makes sense.
Would be a good job for a blancher if the material was magnetic. That pulling material down and keep it from crawling on you is tuff stuff , kind of balancing out weld-mints on a boring mill
I love to watch you making chips, while I'm making chips
Why are you using a manual 4 chuck on the millturn instead of a hydraulic one ?
The manual 4-jaw better suites the kind of work I do. Also its smaller in diameter and doesn't require a draw bar. So without the draw tube in the spindle I get the full Spindle bore of 6.650" in diameter. For my work the speed it takes to chuck a part isn't as important as getting things to run true. Usually the parts I run will be in the machine sometimes up to a week at a time. Also a manual 4-jaw chuck will hold on to a part better than a hydraulic chuck. A hydraulic chuck looses clamping force with speed and the weight of the jaws. A manual 4-jaw doesn't have that problem.
Not sure about titanium, but I make some 304 SS plats that are .4 by 6 by 12.5 the part gets about a 4 inch chamfer on the 6 inch width both sides, so any ways I hold the 3/4 plate machine around the profile using a dynamic tool path with a 1/2 endmill running around 200 ipm and .02 step over I then release the vice and go at least .03 under the skin using a 1/2 endmill with a .03 rad, And cut the face. I then do the same typ of cut dynamic the back off .03 plus with the step over .02 that normally takes about 2 hours I then skim .015 each face again with the 1/2 .03 rad endmill. Doing it that way in a vice I can hold .0015 flatness and a .002 thickness and parallel. That process doing with a fly cutter would take the guys that use to do it about 5.5 hours so I took off 3 hours doing it the way I do them. Now again it’s 304 so totally different material but it might be worth trying some time for u on titanium. Anyways great video as per usual take it easy stay safe.
What u said somewhere between 4min and 5min got my like & sub.
Thanks!
At a previous job I had some big aluminum plates, 226x75" and 0.75 ±0.005. One of the most challenging features I've ever done. We had to use an ultrasonic thickness gage to measure the middle to.
We made aluminium test coupons where I last worked. They were approximately the size of an A4 sheet of paper. A huge 5-inch face mill with inserts in every other pocket was used to cut them. The tool was too big to fit into the tool changer so we had to put it in by hand- the tool weighs over 30 pounds so it's not an easy task. We used a vacuum fixture to hold the plates. One day we had a huge problem with plates bowing due to internal stresses and we ended up modifying the program so we could flip the plates over before the last two machining passes.
Thanks for the video Peter it couldn't have come anytime better.I just got a job exactly like the one you showed very similar in length and thickness but only 4" wide.I have never machined 3D printed Titanium plate before so was a little nervous not knowing how it's going to behave.Will be machining on a vertical machining centre.I noticed you mentioned about 10"/min feed but didn't notice the cutting speed.It would be very helpful if you could give me those values rather than experimenting.Thanks again.
I ended up on 200 rpm on this 3” diameter cutter. That works out to 157 sfm. But this depends a lot on the tools inserts grade. Also I have never machined printed titanium either so I’m not sure what to tell you. But this speed would be a safe starting point I think.
@@EdgePrecision The only indexable insert cutter I have is 2" dia. and for machining aluminium.Unfortunately it is 90 deg.edge not like the one you have.Thank you for the info,I'll give it ago only way to find out.
Not a machinist but I can honestly find myself fascinated by what the cost of that plate as suppled by the customer could be (knowing your cost for that material would vary wildly). What the cost and positive/negative issue with sending the material out for stress relief would be. But my gut feeling is Peter knows full well that even with stress relief he is not going to simply be able to flatten a face and hog everything off the other face of stress relieved material and come out with a part in tolerance because of the issue he explains. The tooling/cutting re-introduces stresses into the material as its cutting and that stress has to be accommodated. Non-machinist I hear people say Titanium is "gummy" so while you'd run dead sharp tooling at all times the simple fact is after the first chip cut your tool is dulling which means every subsequent cut is introducing more heat and displacing some super small amount of material to a forging/forming/rolling effect.
I'd imagine those plates at .800 must be worth 3, 4, 5, thousand dollars a piece? What would stress relief cost? What is the cost of 5 hours of machining to get them flat? My guess is an individual who has owned the shop he is now leasing a bit of to operate in (asked by the new owner), the customer who supplied the material, knows that the costs alternative to this course of action would be higher.
Coming from the wood world, EVERYTHING in this video made total sense.
I think this customer had this material to make some other parts already. So they sent it to make these parts. This set of parts are sort of a R&D set. So I guess if they are successful they will get the proper material for production.
@@EdgePrecision No question there. Obvious the customer had the material on hand. My issue was with all the comments that shoulda been stress relieved, etc.. Cost of the material alone, and I can only imagine even stress relief wouldnt have let you hammer into the material with no concern for movement hogging away that much stock on the customer supplied material. Like I mentioned, I can only imagine that material supplied by the customer represents thousands of dollars in saved material costs on their part.
Aa young apprentice I had to use a big plough grinder to get something similar flat. but titanium is a different beast.
Would you consider using all of those inserts on another job, with softer steel. Maybe save some money.
I really really want to see the design of the clamps, since I've been doing more and more 5-axis cutting, and dealing with some huge hunks of material for the machines in our shop.
Look at my previous videos on them. You will get the idea on how they work.
Like one of the other commenters I also thought about having them stress relieved but in your response you mentioned that you can't just send certified material out to be heat treated. Could you please talk about certified material a bit and explain what it is, why it needs to be certified, and what you can and can't do with it. Certified material is something I have had just about nothing to do with and would like to understand more about it - thanks Peter.
It just means that the material should be exactly what it is to composition, batch and is traceable to where it came from. If there is a failing part made by 1 shop and another shop making the same part perfectly fine both with certified material then the problem is with the first shop. Now if there is no cert material then who's to say that 1 shop is using an unsuitable grade of material for that part due to lack of stock or cheaping out.
I burn up inserts on my slab flattening bits for my router just taking to big of a bite in Mesquite wood. Can you imagine what i'd do with these machines?
Yeah... i better just stay retired!
Thnx Peter.
Appreciate what you said in the start of the video about views and such. Using the 10 turns per insert must help for the cost of production when this is only starting the stock. Now if I was doing this I would want to just subtract on my H offset and not g54 (or what you're using) because zero is zero and my height is the offset I am changing. Why change the way you did? Great video as always
I set the tool lengths for this machine with the Speroni tool setter on the bench. Once set for a tool it should never be changed (except for a slight wear). Unless the tool is changed. Than the part offset is set in the fixture offset being used in the Z in a negative direction from the Z home position. Also if you use a spindle probe this is the way you have to set the offsets. This is the proper way to set the height offset for tools. That way you can run mutable setups and not have to worry about that tools offset. Or run many fixture offsets on a single setup for the same tool length. If you keep changing your tool length you can’t be sure it’s right the next setup. With what I was doing here I was moving the zero of the program in to what I knew was my target. It sounds like you need to learn how to use fixture offsets. This could open up new ways to do your machine work. Using for instance mutable vises to do more than one part at a time.
When are those clamps going to be available for retail sales?
interesting, if try to fly turning tool, the result will be the same?
Peter, do you think adding stress relief to the process would have made it easier to machine, and hold the thickness in tolerance?
Possibly, but dealing with material you have certifications. You can’t just be sending material out to be heat treated. It will no longer meet the customers specs.
I was also going to make the same comment.
Perhaps the customer only wants straight machining only?
Why didn’t you go with a more free cutting positive-positive style cutter, yes less indexes per insert, but less cutting pressure. Like a Sumitomo WGX? And did you try the AH8025 grade from tungaloy?
This insert has a positive cutting geometry. This is the grade of insert I had. So that’s what I used.
@@EdgePrecision the insert does but cutter body is negative on that style. I was just curious. I know in job shop work the “best” tool for the job is sometimes the one you already have! If not constrained by time or money would that tool still have been your choice is what I was really getting at.
If money and time were no object. I would grind solid carbide endmills with the lead angle and tip radius and more positive geometry.
Would a job like this Titanium plate be a candidate for a vacuum plate hold-down system along with your newly made (beautiful) hold-down clamps. Just wondering 🤔
The thing about a vacuum plate is you can’t get a part truly flat on one. It’s like a magnetic chuck. Both will force a warped part down to their flat surface. Than when released the part will spring up. Some mag chucks on grinders you can control the strength of the magnet to minimize this. I would also worry just a little using a vacuum chuck in this vertical position.
@@EdgePrecision Thank you so much for your reply. I hadn't thought about the vacuum plate perpetuating the warpage problem. Again.. beautiful clamps!
Keep doing you 🖖🏼 never change