What type of material do you cut?

[BenK]

Were I work we cut mostly aluminum castings, I would say around 90% of what we do is aluminum. We have mostly Makino horizontals to work with.

 

What I'm looking to do is to convince everyone that we should be looking at doing steel and stainless steel as well. I'm getting to the point that I feel I'm starting to fall behind because I don't cut anything but aluminum and it will hurt me in the future. What I'm looking for is what everyone else does for materials to try and show them that we need to branch out if we want to really bring some work in the door.

 

 

1)What type of material and the % of your time that takes up?

 

2)Machine you cut it on?

[robk]

1)What type of material and the % of your time that takes up?

High Temp Alloys 50% of the time. Most of them nickel based with an occasional cobalt based. The other 50% is Titanium.

Lately it seems like I have been working more with forgings then castings. We make very large (and very expensive) jet engine parts.

 

2)Machine you cut it on?

Some of the brands we have are Mori-Seiki, Mazak, Maatsura, Okuma, Makino, Parpas, Johnford, as well as other brands that I can't think of right now.

[Goldorak]

Steel (any kind) -33%

stainless (about 20 different grades) -33%

inconel, hastelloy, A286, titanium and a lot of other un-machinable stuff -33%

 

and we buy a lot of tooling

 

 

i can say that aluminum is less than 1% here , about 3-4 jobs per years

 

 

the hard stuff is 100% cut on Okuma machine the best is ou MC-V4020-B cat50), our mazak (VTC200-50) are not rigid enough to handle some materials and hold a +-.0005 tol

[chris m]

4340 All day every day

4140 Sometimes

Ductile Iron All day every day

17-4PH most days

15-5PH most days

304L the days I want to drink after

303 not often enough

416 once in awhile

Nitronic 60 more days I want to drink after

1144 All day every day

1026 Sometimes

1018 Sometimes

7075-T6 Often

6061-T6 when I can't convince our engineers to use 7075

 

Our machines are all Okuma, Okuma-Howa, Mori, and Matsuura

 

C

[Goldorak]

Cris , when you got the right tooling for 304L it's like cutting 1018. it's a walk in the park to get the job done fast , then you will get more time to drink

[BenK]

One of the things they try telling me is that cutting steel is hard on the machine. I really want to do something other than aluminum but I'm having a hard time convincing them to get the work in the door.

[Joe788]

We're probably at about 50% aluminum, 50% 303, 17-4, 4140, 4340, etc. Two years ago we were about 100% aluminum.

 

I actually prefer steel and stainless steel parts, because there's more money in it. ESPECIALLY on parts that lend themselves well to dynamic milling. Most of the parts we make are a few hundred operations, with 80-90% of the material removed, and very tight tolerances. A lot of the stuff we're doing lately requires rough, heat treat to 200ksi, finish, which is a bit of a hassle.

 

All the machines are Mazak.

[GoetzInd]

I'd say 50% Aluminum. Other 50% between 303,316, Grade 2 and 5 titanium, and 4340.

 

Mike

[chris m]

Martin, we don't struggle with turning or milling 304L so much, though we aren't setting any speed records, but I just don't have the time to really sink my teeth into the drilling and tapping; that's where we really struggle sometimes. I've had more success threadmilling 304 than tapping it.

 

 

C

[Marshal]

We do probably 98% aluminum (2024 and 6061) on our single Hurco VM-1. Today is the first day in a long time it's not going to be running the entire day, but that's because our machinist is working on a different project, and I haven't gotten the chance to go over and set something up to run.

 

We've got an AXYZ cnc router as well that I run, and that's used for fabrics, leather, foams, cardboard, and acrylic.

[BenK]

We're probably at about 50% aluminum, 50% 303, 17-4, 4140, 4340, etc. Two years ago we were about 100% aluminum.

 

What was the reason for the switch? I'm trying to convince management to do the same thing here and I'm just trying to figure out a way to show them it is the right move.

[TGrant]

The past six months have been maybe 60% 1018/1045, 20% 6061, 10% 4140, and 10% Stainless Steels.

 

A year ago we were probably 60% 6061, 20% Plastics, 10% 1018, and 10% Stainless Steels.

 

All has to do with what is coming in for quotes.

[Goldorak]

What was the reason for the switch? I'm trying to convince management to do the same thing here and I'm just trying to figure out a way to show them it is the right move.

 

 

simply calculate the percentage of profit on raw material

[headhunter]

We're somewhere around 50% graphite, 40% molybdenum, and the other 10% is pure tungsten, 304ss, 6061, boron nitride, various plastics. In my corner of the shop, There's 4 DMG 5 axis mills, but we also have Mori Seiki 3 axis mills, and couple of Sharps, as well as Doosan, Mori, and DMG lathes.

[Tim Johnson]

We run around 80% aluminum, 8% stainless/nickel alloys, 8% plastics of all types and the rest in copper alloys, tungsten alloys, G10/glass/ceramics, and what ever else the sadistic engineers can dream up.

[Sticky]

Probably about 65-75% 304-321, maybe 10%aluminum, the rest 4140, Ti, Monel, Inconel etc.

[mayday]

Titanium

Gamma Ti Aluminide

Nickle X

Inconel

Hanes

Rene

Stainless

Udimet

 

Mazaks, Mori, Okk, Kiwa

 

and about 6 figures worth of carbide every month

[Bill Henderson]

70% Aluminum

10% SS (316,303,304)

10% Plastic

5% Invar (<--- Hate it)

5% Various steels, alloys, and ceramics

 

Note on the Invar... after countless broken tap issues 2-56, 4-40, and 6-32 I convinced them to let me thread mill. 1000 times more productive. Thanks to the forum after reading up on pros and cons.

 

We have nothing but HAAS... some old and some new.