G-10 Material

[MILL IT]

I have a job to machine to machine some G-10 material. I know nothing about machining this stuff does anyone have any info on this material.How well it cuts speed feeds any help would be very usefull.

Thanks for the help

[gavetta]

I've got some but not alot. I use solid carbide endmills with SFM of 250 ish, "chip" load depends on cutter size (.001 for smaller,.006-.01 bigger) but it really creates a nasty dust that will make you itch because of the fiber glass content. I run coolant if I can. Hope this helps.

Al

[mman10]

G-10 is very abrasive and because of the glass content will tend to bow. I have never run coolant on it, maybe a little water if need be. Be sure to wear a particle mask as this is nasty stuff. As far as speeds and feeds, I would run it on the slower side to preserve tool life.

[Brad St.]

If doing a lot of ruffing you may want to consider diamond tooling.

 

+1 on all the above about the dust, if you run coolant you will want to consider changing it out and flushing your system after running this stuff. Otherwise it will just cycle in your system and eat up your next tool's in other runs.

[gavetta]

Excellant point on the coolant Bradst. I hadn't given that much thought 'cause I only cut the stuff a couple of times in the mill. Had to turn a 2 ft. length down on a manual lathe once though, what a mess. I used a tip a guy who worked repairing yachts gave me though. Put baby powder on your arms etc., to keep the glass dust from getting in your skin pores. Seem to help a bit but .... good luck Mill It.

[dougm]

We machine G-10 every day

coolant is a must if you dont have a dust collection

system.

rough with fiberglass routers 250 sfpm

be carefull of contamanation in the coolant

before you use it on the G-10

it can asorb oil and metal particles

+1 on changing after the job

[Threept82]

G-10 (a.k.a. green death) is also toxic so if not using flood coolant whoever you have machine it be sure they have dust masks so they don’t breath in the dust.

[JazzBass]

We always figure in the cost of a coolant change and clean up of the machine when we bid G-10 jobs. I push the feed as much as I can to prolong tool life. I find that light finishing cuts can wear a carbide tool down fast. JMO.

[Slick]

I used to machine this all of the time. If you are doing small parts, 0.100" thick to say 0.500" material I wouldn't recommend using anything larger than 0.375" in diameter. We would prefer to use cheaper end mills, carbide, 2 flute, or 4 flute (I liked 2 flute, the boss liked 4 flute!). The reason we went with cheap cutters was the fact that they will get smoked, and the price ratio didn't add up if we went with expensive cutters. I'd say 7500-10,000 RPM at 20.000-45.000 IPM.

We never used "Diamond" cutters, but we did use ceramic insert cutters, these were great for mass material removal, but I don't remember what we ended up running them at.

Oh, and unfortunately for me, we never ran wet, it was always dry cutting, with a shop vac rigged up to the spindle head.

Good luck!

[Aaron AKA. Zippy]

+1 on all the above advice

I have had to run all too much of this crappy stuff along with many other glass filled materials. Bang for the buck you cant beat diamond coated cutters, they will last 10x longer easy. I would recomend running wet if at all possible. Running dry is hard on the machine, the dust makes its way on to the ballscrews and ways and will eat them just like it eats carbide endmills. Be prepared to thruoghly claen the sump and change the coolent or you will continue to smoke tooling until all the glass is gone.

Good luck!

 

Zippy