Carbon Fiber

[Rory]

We have been getting to cutting carbon fiber.

Does anybody have any experiance cutting this stuff?

What type of tooling works the best?

We have tried Niagara & RobJack endmills with the TiALN coating.

Has anyone had better luck with any other brand or type?

All the work is small dia. cutters so we can't use indexable cutters.

Any help would be appreciated.

Rory

[ 08-28-2001: Message edited by: Rory Reinhold ]

[Chips Ahoy]

We always used high speed end mills with a cold air gun.

[Rory]

Rick,

Hows the tool life?

Rory

[Chips Ahoy]

We had to cut .375-.500 dia. holes in a plate and let the 2-flute end mill plunge right through the 1/4" plate and circ. interp.'d the holes to size. We were getting about 15-20 plates with 7-10 hole per plate. I don't remember the feeds or speeds though. It was about a year ago. Sorry, Rick

[kathy]

We machine a lot of graphite bonded panels and laminate facesheets:

we use a 'fishtail' (think inverted drill piont) to cut the holes, and a multi-facited fiberglass cutter to route the profiles. We have used carbide, but if the skin is 'dry' we would get fiber delamination at the edges. Which in our buisness is a big oh no!

Kathy

[cadcam]

Watch out guys she's one smart lady.

She has been doing this awhile.

[Bob]

I have never had any carbon fiber jobs to deal with yet but because the stuff is a no show with Xray and I deal with radiation therapy (cancer therapy) most of my time, I want to start learning all I can about the stuff.

Thanks