Stupid rotary table question

[chris m]

I know this is a dumb question, but I have never tried it so I figured I would ask. Is it possible to mill a flat-bottom slot around the diameter of a part on a rotab? I have an almost-all-around groove to machine and it more-or-less needs to be done this way, but in my mind it seems that the stock would be moving into the center of the endmill in a weird way. I have used ball endmills for this kind of thing before with no prob, but this needs to be square; am I over-thinking things here?

 

C

[Jack Neelands™]

Yes and no ...you need the right cutters....we mill outside dia of gears here with button cutters and then cut a groove in the middle using a high feed Mitshubishi and then finish the groove with an endmill to make it sharp

 

The tool for finishing of course is perpendicular to the center of the part where as the roughers are offset for max performance and not have the issue of "cutting underpressure" from the tool cutting on the circumferance of the part

 

HTH

 

 

Stupid enough answer for ya

[chris m]

Jack, roughers are offset how? Sounds like more axes than I have to work with

[mayday]

Chris, I think what Jack means by offset is the leading egde of the cutter on center of the rotory axis, otherwise it will heal cut on the bottom of the endmill

[chris m]

OK, I'm on the trolley now, I was thinking "leaning" the cutter into it so the bottom would be in the clear, but didn't seem like that was real workable. I am going to take a look at slotting saws as an alternative to this as well; I need to do some face machining anyway so maybe we'll kill [2] birds with one stone.

[Jack Neelands™]

The outside button rougher/finisher is offset from the center axis of the part rotation...ie 3 inch button cutter is offset behind the cutting direction by 1.1 inches...Gives us .001 flat and the material is not being forced up underneath the cutterwhile while it is rotating.

We then hit the groove with a 1.00 mitshubishi high feed cutter that is offset .35 behind the cutting direction as well and the finisher is a varible endmill that allows us to cut perpendicular to the axis

 

HTH

[chris m]

Nice.

 

Thanks for the help guys, glad I wasn't making something out of nothing.

 

C