O/T - Lathe tooling suggestions

[jspangler]

Hi

As you know we just got a Mori SL-2 lathe, and since it's my first attempt at turning, I need some tooling recommendations. (For Milling I like Iscar.)

Most of what we will be turning will be Aluminum, Mild Steel, some stainless, and maybe a little 4130.

 

Thanks

 

John

[chris m]

For general turning applications any of the major brands should be fine [sandvik, KM, whatever]. If I was spending my own $$ I'd look at the WNMG insert geometry: molded insert for lower cost, 6 useable corners per insert, reasonable clearance angles, pretty good rigidity...

 

C

[crazy^millman]

Wel Iscar make soem good tools. I liek the WNMG tools but the inserts so have a little movement if hogging off a lot of material. Valentie and Carboly and even generic all work very well for holders then you can get soem good inserts. If drill alot of big holes in your furture get a inserted drill like 2" dia atleast 6" long be suprised how quick you can drill SS with one of these Iscar make a good one as well as others they may seem expensive but putting a hole in something in about 30 second just pays for itself in so many ways.

 

I would get for the Threading a carmex thread kit. It comes with the holder and a bunch of different size inserts for threading they make them for inside and outside and best bang for the buck when getting started. Then fro mthere you can get the inserts you need along and along. I also if dont want to some and no a whole box I just ask my dealr for soem on a test and can get 2 soemtimes with 3 corners eash goes a long way and these inserts cut soem of the best threads you seen without thread rooling them. If you are looking to do production runs on thread then there is another tool that kicks but is job spefic and need spefic but work great on CNC machines.

 

The last thing most people don't know about if broaching on a cnc lathe. Hassey Savage make push style broaches that cut hex's in holes very easy and quick. You put the tool in the turret and just do a M05 spindle stop. Then do a M00 to fill the hole with a good sulpher cutting oil and then push the broach at 5 ipm feed then back out. These tool work wihtout a back relife groove but do best with one.

 

Well it is only a start but I hope it gives you some ideas and soemthing to go off of.

[jspangler]

Hi

Actually we are going to be maily boring out large holes, in mild steel and stainless, and also doing some facing and OD finishing.

 

Glad to see that I can get six sides out of an insert, that tends to pay for itself faster than the promise of faster feed rates, at least in my experience.

 

With the Mori SL-2 do you know what's the largest insertable type drill I can use? There's a place down the street here that has tons of used tools that they buy up from auctions, and sell cheap. I'm sure I could pick up some great deals there as long as I know what to look for.

 

Do you use cutting OIL in the lathe, or coolant like a VMC??

 

Thanks

 

John

[crazy^millman]

I use to use the same coolant in all my CNC machines lathe or mill. I was only talking about the oil for broaching and really need skimmer to keep sluge down.

[dan m]

I like to use the wnmg inserts also for turning and boring. For drilling we use Waukesha drills. You can get them up to 5x the dia. and last forever. We drill 4140 at 600sfm .006 ipr and in my opinion that’s a little slow but the operators get nervous if I go any faster. hth

[Brendan P]

+1 on Waukesha

Diameter of the drill will depend on how much HP the machine has.

Most of these mori's are belt driven but we have an older little "stand up" SL-0 that will drill a 1.187" hole in Hast-X no problem.

Yes use coolant.

+1 on the wnmg too Chris.

John,if you are gonna be turning mild steel your inserts will last real good.

We turn mild steel (A-36) all day long with the same 1 side of the insert!

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

You're Mori has Horsepower to spare. I'd think nothing of pushing a 2" or 3" Komet KUB Drill into steel. Make sure you keep it flooded. If you can spare a few extra bucks, a High Pressure Coolant unit like Cool Jet is great for large Dia. Deep holes.

 

JM2C

[Philcott]

JSPANGLER,

 

We have recently started using kennametals CNMG431P KC5410 insert for aluminum. This is one of the best inserts for breaking up the chips I have ever used. The chips damn near crumble like cast iron. It probaby comes in WNMG as well if you are looking for 6 sides.

 

You mentioned 4130 material. We use cermet grade inserts for finishing most of our steel jobs. They have long life, stable cutting, have cutting speeds in the 1000-1200 SFM range and are cheeper than other grades.

 

Water soluable is what we use in all but one of our cnc lathes. Oil is in that lathe and works very well but is a pain to operate. The smell seems to gets into your skin. Rust is not an issue in that enviroment.

 

The other guys have all given you good info to go on and a good place to start tooling up the mori.

 

Good luck with it.

 

Phil

[chris m]

John

 

If you're going to be boring THRU most stuff I'd use SNMGs instead of WNMGs because you get 8 corners and you can get boring bars with the insert laid back 15 degrees that'll rip stock off with impunity. If you're boring stepped bores I'll revert to the WNMG suggestion. I use Sandvik's 4015 grade for steel roughing and 2015 for stainless with great success.

 

I wouldn't put cutting oil anywhere near my CNCs for any turning / threading ops; I think Ron was talking about broaching only.

 

U-Drill style drills rock; I hate spade drills for large holes. I don't know about max dia for the SL2, it is a pretty small machine but those early vintage Mori machines have a lot of balls; I think I'd start with 1-1/2" or so and see what she does.

 

C

[McRae]

quote:

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U-Drill style drills rock; I hate spade drills for large holes. I don't know about max dia for the SL2, it is a pretty small machine but those early vintage Mori machines have a lot of balls; I think I'd start with 1-1/2" or so and see what she does.

---

Again, Chris has some excellent advice. Indexable drills in the lathe are the only way to go, a lot more forgiving to mis alignement than a tool that is self centering trying to find the rotational axis (ie broken twist drills). The other benefit with an indexable drill is you can control the size using a diametrical offset. Be cautious that you don't exceed the published offset amount in the catalogue though. The other benefit, you can use the drill to bore a finish the hole. Read the Sandvik catalogue, they are excellent for application ideas.

 

As a contrast to what Chris is suggesting by using as many corners of the carbide as possible, I will suggest that you use the right tool in the right application, for facing operations - use a 15degree lead facing tool and for turning operations use a turning tool similar.

 

If you like Iscar Milling, you are going to love thier turning, Extreeme Machining at its finest. Use the same coolant but with turning, there is a greater amount of evaporation so keep and eye on the consentration percentage and keep the sump clean to promote good sump life.

 

Any one can mill/drill/tap/ream, Turning is a much more complex set of rules - and making good high tolerance parts can be very profitable.

[jspangler]

Hi

great!! THe lathe will be here tomorrow morning, and it comes with some tooling, so I'll see what it's got then go from there.

 

I'm stoked, I actually have a Mori!!

 

One last thing, this thing has a 20' Barfeed, does it HAVE to be attached. If so I need to do some SERIOUS shop rearranging today, OAL will be close to 30' in a 40' wide shop!!

 

thanks for all the tips

 

 

John

[Brendan P]

No it does not need to be attatched.

Most of these bar feeders are sold seperately as an 'add on' type of thing made by other company's.

But you may need to put a cap on the end of the spindle so coolant don't stream back if you don't use it.

 

It depends what you want to do with it.

If you plan on making 1000's of little parts,then yes you may want to put it on.

[EZ3PUTT]

If it is a hydrostatic barfeeder and you do hook her up one word of caution. If you EVER run tubing make yourself a plug WITH an o-ring to fit inside the tube. Otherwise it won't take long for all the oil in the barfeeder to run through the tube and right into your coolant supply. Learned that the hard way many years ago. We had 5 Mori's in an aerospace shop I worked in. 3 SL-1s 1 SL-2 and an SL-3 all with Yasnac controls. I figure that in the 12 years i worked there these machines logged somewhere around 125,000 hours combined. Only had one service call in that time. We put way oil in and pulled chips out and held tenth's all day long.

[Brendan P]

quote:

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If it is a hydrostatic barfeeder

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They can also be very dangerous if not aligned up and not locked down good to the floor as well as the "swing away" locked into position.

[pno]

You can try PDHNL geometry from SECO it's very good for step OD finish operation , for OD routh PWLNL geometry with WNMG, for ID and small diameter (>=6mm) I work with SWUBL from ISCAR it's very good and ISCAR have some very good solution for ID grooving. The inserts it's very good and resist in time. I work with AMS 6265 and more like this and it's work very fine.

If you have more questions don't hesitate to mail me.

[Tim Johnson]

for boring use carbide bars if you can afford it, or heavy metal bars. It's amazing how much difference there is over a steel bar. Also split sleeves are much better for holding your bore bars than bore bar holders. (cuts down on vibration tremendiously).

[jspangler]

Hi

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

The lathe is here, in place, and waiting to be wired. I can't believe this thing is listed as drawing 80 amps!! Whoa!!

 

I plan on printing this topic and taking it withme when I go tool shopping. There's a place down the street that sells surplus and auctin tools, and I'm sure I'll be able to tool up cheap and start cutting right away.

 

Thanks

 

John

[Brendan P]

Yea,just watch the long hair when you are polishing a part!

[chopsley]

Wow, So much good info.

I've used the WNMG's and they are fine if you are not roughing D2 or really nasty stuff. For that the good ole CNMG is still my weapon of choice. As for broaching on a lathe, I've used the Slater line of tooling with very good results.

No dead spindle feeding. You can make hex holes for allen sockets, or even od splines and the like.

Later all...