Machining D2

[AMCNitro]

I have to make some dies out of D2, and surprisingly, I have never machined it before.  What should I expect?  What other material machines similar?

Thanks in advance 

[crazy^millman]

3 hours ago, AMCNitro said:

I have to make some dies out of D2, and surprisingly, I have never machined it before.  What should I expect?  What other material machines similar?

Thanks in advance 

13-8 or 17-4 comes to Mind. It will work harden so be careful with your speeds and feeds. Want to be cutting with a good chip load per tooth verse running with to little of a chip load. Dynamic with a 5 Flute Solid Carbide or High Feed cutter should do good.

[nickbe10]

8 hours ago, AMCNitro said:

I have to make some dies out of D2, and surprisingly

Ditto Ron. The other related problem I had was insufficient feed rate while stitching (swaging dies in D2 and S7). If your cutter looks like it has been rubbed like an old school eraser.....it has.

I never had a problem once i just settled on being aggressive with feed rates. I machined annealed at 250 SFM left .015 - .02 stock. Hardened then finished. Can't remember what surface footage, whatever the machinists handbook recommended for the hardness we used worked good as I recall. High feed toolpaths ate it up. I did a whole bunch, once I had it down I could walk away and program, just checked the cutters.

[AMCNitro]

Im mostly going to be turning it, plus some drilling and reaming.  Ill be careful with the work hardening.

 

Thanks everyone!

[AHarrison1]

11 hours ago, AMCNitro said:

Im mostly going to be turning it, plus some drilling and reaming.  Ill be careful with the work hardening.

 

Thanks everyone!

I suggest leaving a little more than usual for your finishing pass and, if you can, use through tool coolant for the drill and drill with no pecks.

If no through tool for the drill then peck at least 1.5 x D.

[AMCNitro]

Thanks everyone for all the help with this job.  It was a lot easier to machine D2 than I thought it would be.  I ended up using cobalt drills and they worked just fine, it wasn't a lot of holes.  One thing I did notice is that it cuts really nice, but taking skim cuts to bring in the tolerance(+-.0005 engineer was being and AH) it does wear out the tool more than other materials.  One more material I have experience with.