Running Wood on Machining Centers

[Sandybar]

I've made several patterns out of wood on our Machining center (Mori Sieki) and the general question is does wood damage your Machine tool? The theory is that the wood dust get on the ways and soaks up oil, thus damaging the ways. Also the spindle bearings are also a question too.

 

Does anybody out there run wood on their Machining centers and still have good machine tool life?

[kathy]

Wood ??

 

Try runnig composite tiles and see what the dust does to your was and spindle bearings!

 

Kathy

[crazy^millman]

Well if you are worried get a vacuum and run it next to the tool and will keep the dust out of everything. We run Ren and Model board here and no real probelm just have to keep checking your cooler fans and such is all. I take air conditoner filters and put in front of the electronics and helps that out but the New HAAS already thought of that for me.

 

 

Crazy Millman

[Rick Damiani]

+1 on the vaccume. Wood dust can be explosive under the right curcumstances. If you'll be doing a lot of it you'll want to invest in some ventalation.

[Trevor Bailey]

I was running wood on a HAAS VF-3. We actually ran wood on two machining centers. We added a car filter to the top of the spindle to help with the dust. The dust soaking up the oil, to me, makes cleaning up a little easier. You will need to do routine maintenance. It is not very hard. If you have the means, buy a dust coolector system and all your problems will be minimal. You can also make a housing with shop-vac lines hooked to them stationed at the ends of your table to help pull the dust down and away. Takes a little brain power to set up, but still very doable.

 

Taylor Guitars has over 40 Fadals cutting wood 7days a week. Just routine cleaning takes care of them.

 

[ 12-02-2003, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: Trevor Bailey, from Barefoot CNC ]

[Tony]

Wood is the lesser of all the Evils!

[Craig Madsen from CM3D]

Clean the machine completely before using coolant. The dust/debris swells when it gets soaked and if that happens in the coolant system you may end up cleaning ALL of the coolant system.

[ScottyB]

That's funny...Where I work, people ask if it's possible to run metal on our machine.

Our Heian is buried in sawdust 20hrs a day, 5 days a week. Going on 8 years.

Just take care of it. Use vacuum, clean up well, and clean your filters. As was said before, wood dust can be very flamable. I wouldn't machine wood in the middle of a metal shop without some major precautions.

 

Later