cuttin plastic

[poconnor]

Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone out there has any experience cutting UHMW,Poly-propelyne or Nylon sheet plastic. I have for a while and I wanted to know what kind of feeds and speeds others are using??

[rob@fain]

I've been cutting Delrim, HDPE, PVC, Polycarb and such on Komo routers at 12000 rpm and start ipm at about 300 and then adjust accordingly. We use vaccuum tables and everything works pretty good.

 

rob

[poconnor]

Hey Rob,

I cut delrin, and pvc too but with those materials

we've been using about 15000rpm and feeds about 150 to 225ipm. Mostly because of restrictions on our 'ancient' machine. I'm hoping to get things sped up quite a bit with our new machine. What are you using for cutters. We use 1/2" carbide endmills 2-flute with standard helix. Surface finish is pretty important?

[Keith Graydon]

VERY sharp tools and dont let the chips pack

 

HTH

-KLG

[MACHINEMASTERG]

i think if you do a search you will find this has been covered before... but anyway in uhmw besides using high rpms and an extremly sharp hss end mills ive found that if you conventional mill your finish cut with about .025 on youl find you will get a great finish because it kind of wipes the edge clean i leave at least .025 so it cuts it not rubs the finish cut... hth

[poconnor]

Thanks MachineMasterG

I searched and there was some discusion on here about this in the past. The only problem we have with HSS endmills is that the edge doesn't last very long. Carbide sacrifices a little on the surface finish but the cutters last a lot longer.

[Roger Peterson]

Coated HSS cutters last several times as long as non coated ones in plastic. HSS tools do give a much better finish, if that is important to you.