Hi Guys, has anyone had any luck turning a screw tip on a part using MasterCam Lathe X2. I'm looking to build a "medical" part that has a tip like a wood screw (progressively smaller tip). I don't see this option in the MasterCam menu? I'm trying to come up with a creative way to cheat a canned threading cycle, like for a pipe thread but thought I'd post here first. Thanks in advance for any help.............

The gasket material is flexible black rubber (buy it by the foot) Dunham Tool Inc. - I don't know why they don't advertise it? Contact them though - they sell it, or I can provide contact info where I buy it through a rep. It is square by nature with a small flap on top. You machine a defined width and depth groove and push the seal into it, no glue to hold it in place. Cut the joining ends and silicone seal them togther. The flap faces OUT away from your vacuum area. When vacuum is introduced, this little flap raises up meet your material and provides an effective seal. The hose I use is braided rubber hose from McMaster. I also use a tank from Dunham that collects coolant that may get by your seal occasionally. The vacuum unit is installed on top of it, and on opposite end of line so coolant doesnt get to the vacuum unit. It will collect about 2 gallons before it needs to be emptied. Hope this helps Ben Benjamin

I have been building machined parts for 20 years in Vertical and Horizontal mills using vacuum!!! Most of what has already been discussed is what I've used, venturi vacuum generators, build your own fixtures with a grid pattern, pin or sink your part into fixture, adjustable rails to slide in and capture part. The product I've had the best luck with is called flap seal. It is a square shaped rubber gasket with a "flap" on it. You mill a " precision" track, cut and fit the gasket into the tack, silicone the ends together, introduce vacuum and CUT CHIPS!! -------------------- Ben Benjamin

I updated to X2 MR2 finally! I have been stuck in V9 for a while now. I frequently use the awesome feature of saving a verified file as an .stl and xforming into the next oper file and cutting it again there to verify the next op etc. My problem is today it started crashing and messing up my whole computer. The .stl file is quite large by my normal mastercam file comparison (40K), and I think this might be the problem. I tried setting the .stl tolerance higher, but it didn't seem to effect the file size. Has anybody encountered and overcome this problem out there? Ben Incodema Ithaca, NY X2 MR2 Mill 3 A MasterCam junkie .......

----------------------------------------------- I have used a product called flap seal for many years. It is a square rubber gasket that you silicone into a groove. It has a little flap that lifts up under vacuum and seals any imperfections in your part seal surface. I have some at work and could come up with manufacturer, but just did a quick web search and didn't find it. A neat trick with this if you have a hole in the middle of the part that would break the vacuum seal. We put an oring around it! ----------------------------------------------- Ben Benjamin Incodema Inc. X2 MR2 SP1 Mill Level 3