Our Fanuc wire machines have screen filters plumbed into the water lines that will block flow if not cleaned regularly. Not sure about a Sodick I've never run one. It's part of our procedure to clean them now when changing resin tanks.

Does anyone have any tips for deburring this stuff besides the cryogenic treatments? I have one hundred 5/16 dia. shafts 12" long with a boss machined on both ends and a slot milled down the length. I've done a few sample parts that I chamfered by hand with a HSS scraper and the customer still complained about "sharpness" on the edges. They updated their print to put a .005 radius on all edges but the extruded parts are out of round .010-.025 so using a chamfer tool to machine the edge is out of the question. I need to ship these next week and was wondering if there are any type of abrasive wheels or brushes that might work on this material to create a softer blend on the corners.

I'm in!

We do it quite a bit here to allow using a bigger sized boring bar for finishing

4th axis on right side of the table and kurt vise on the left. I primarily do custom extrusion tips and dies to support our medical tubing divison so everything is one off and I often have to stop whatever I'm doing to do quick revisions.

No one? I guess I'm headed into uncharted territory on this job. LOL

She's a beauty look like you got it loaded up to(bar feed & mist collection). I haven't run a Doosan yet but I've heard alot of good things about them.

I have the chance to quote secondary operation work on some metal injection molded parts. They are 420 and 17-4 stainless the customer is telling me the density and hardness are equal to bar stock material. I have cut plenty of 420 and 17-4 but I'm wondering if the injection molded powdered metal has the same cutting properties. This is high volume work so my biggest concern in abrasiveness and tool wear. Anyone worked with this stuff before?

I went through the same thing, looked at machines, got quotes from all the dealers, "see whats in stock we have to get it on the shop floor by the end of the year", then poof nothing. I hope they don't come back next week and say we need it now.

http://www.odtool.com/

I normally use .01 return .1 retract, but on some deep hole cooling lines we drill in aluminum molds I've had to change the return to .05 or .075 to prevent rapiding into the chips that fall back in the holes.

thanks Matthew Hajicek™ -Midland Tech Your response/screenshots at the beginning of this post helped me thru my first milled taper thread this morning.

We are actually looking at a Makino F5, the Haas just came up because the company is shutting down and they're in the same building as us. We already have 6 Haas verticals really dont need another, even if it has the trunion table. I'm ready to take a step up to a higher level of machine I gave the owners my opinion ($50K but dont really need it), hope they don't back off of the Makino and go for the Haas. If they want to buy both we can find a use for it.

I tired contacting our Haas sales rep to get a service report on the machine to check on any crashes, but havent heard back yet.

Its a 2006 super low hours (dont have the exact amount), a small amount of tooling, Renishaw OMP 400 probe and lista tooling cabinet. We are taking over the space they are in now so we wouldn't have to move the machine. From what I was told they did very little actual cutting they just ran programs thru the machine cutting air or cut aluminum to verify their programs. They put out a number of $81,470.00 seems pretty high to me a new one goes for around $115,000.00

We have the opportunity to buy a used Haas VF-2TR (VF-2 with a trunion table) from a company in the same building as us. This was an engineering company that only used the machine for occasional test cuts, no production the machine appears to be in very good condition. Anyone have an idea on the value of this machine? They are asking us to make a bid without putting any price on it themselves.

We have a MSC tool crib system but the reports go to our office manager/secretary who has no idea what anything means so she waits until someone comes up and asks for tooling. That usually means we are out, I can't tell you how many times I've gone to get common tools for us and found the drawers empty. What ever system you choose is only as good as the people maintaining it. We were better off when our lead programmer ordered the tools because he at least had an idea of what we were using and who had it last.

We dont run shrink fit tooling, but over on the extrusion machines they have to use a torch to burn off excess plastic when cleaning the heads between runs. I have seen operators prop up the torch blasting one side of the extrusion cones while they are breaking the machine down thinking they are being more efficient. This usually results in a $2000.00 paperweight as these heads reiy on a precise taper fit to seal and heating on one side warps the cone.

Dang I thouht it was gold I've been stashing all I find in my toolbox!

I just got the quote in for a Makino F5 yesterday. We know eventually we will need the sinker, but feel we have more use for the mill at this point. The injection mold work will be in house stuff only, with a lot of develpoment/prototyping so the mill should give faster turnaround times over having to machine an electrode then burn a cavity. The sales rep recommended the 20,000 rpm HSK spindle and the only other add on was the Renishaw NC4+ probe with laser toolsetter. Any other options I should be looking at? At this point any factory installed options are out, as the tax incentives for the end of year are one of the major factors in the purchase.

We've only worked with CPM 90 more of a modified stainless not tool steel. CPM 15 doesn't sound like a lot of fun the link below has some cutting info on the last page. Good luck! http://www.zapp.com/fileadmin/downloads/01-Produkte/Datenblaetter-Werkzeuglegierungen/CPM%2015V_E.pdf

Worked fine for me

Now that I'm thinking about this we also had a problem with a Haas mill that was located under the heater in our shop. We were cutting mold cavities and you could see witness lines when the heater had kicked on. You would think it would have been a gradual change but it definately had a distinct step probably only a few tenths and luckily they were aluminum molds so it was easy enough to polish out.

Not quite the same thing, but in our old building our wire EDM was set up in the front of the shop exposed to large windows. In the spring and fall I would notice changes in the late afternoon when the sun would shine in directly on the machine. Granted it was a wire edm so we were talking having to make offset changes in the .0002 or so range. Solved the problem by taping cardboard over the windows.

I was just informed our sister company will be purcashing an injection molding machine to expand their medical product line and the machine shop will be responsible for the mold making. We have experience in manufacturing blow molds and have done a couple small injection molds in the past. I was asked what equipment would be needed for us to be able to handle this. We have multiple Haas VMCs and lathes, a Mazak Integrex, a couple Fanuc Wire EDMs, an AgieCharmilles small hole EDM, Okamoto surface grinder, and other manual equipment. I was thinking a sinker EDM might be neccessary for the cavity work. but was wondering if a high end mill would be a better purchase. We like our Haas equipment but know the limitations.Of course I dont have any specific parts to look at, but from what I know they would be overmolding end lures and junctions on the medical tubing they are currently extruding. I am just looking to see what others in the industry are doing, from reading trade magazines there has been a transion away from EDM to hard milling when the work allows it.