If cutting Inconel is a headache, then slot milling Inconel is a full-blown migraine—at least for Mike at Kremin. Everything he was throwing at this Inconel job on the Haas VF2 CNC Mill wasn’t working, so Trevor brought in the big guns: Steve Oszust, Product Development Manager at Fullerton Tool Co. In this video, Steve will go through Mike’s original process and make some suggestions on what changes should be made.
See more info on tools used in this video here: https://fullertontool.com/products/end-mills/3500SM-micro-fury.
Video Transcript:
What’s up, fellas? Dude, what the heck? This sucks—I keep breaking endmills every time I run them on this inano. Oh, hang on, it’s Dave’s inano. I don’t care whose inano it is, I just need it fixed. Let me get a guy in here. I know someone who can really help with this.
Alright, while we give Mike a minute to cool down, I’m going to introduce you to the man, Steve. Steve is from Fullerton Tool, and he’s here to save Caffrey from quitting his job and get this project running the way it should be. Steve, I hope you have a lot of information to help us out here.
“This is easy, let’s do it. Alright, Mike, tell me what’s going on.”
“Oh, I’m trying to cut on this incel here with this tiny little groove. We tried doing it on the lathe with a groover, and that destroyed every endmill we have in-house. The endmills I’ve tried only make it about halfway through. I’m plunging it as deep as it’ll go for the full depth, going at about 5,500 RPM and 40 inches per minute. Nothing is working.”
“I think I have an answer for you. This will take a little finesse. Maybe step it in 10% increments. Let’s rough it down, then finish with a Fullerton Fury. Fullerton’s Micro Fury has eccentric relief and variable spacing, with our FC20 coating. It’s perfect for this incanel job. I recommend a rough finish first, then we’ll change tools and finish up to depth with a fresh cutter.”
“Alright, I’ll give it a try.”
…
“Alright, Steve, I did what you suggested. I got a 5.5-inch cut down perfectly, going at about 5.3 inches per minute. It’s holding up really well now. I’m getting ready to make the final pass. Everything you suggested is working out pretty well.”
“Perfect. I think we had too long of an arm before. You got a lot of bending moment on that tool trying to take the full depth. We’re just being a little nicer to it, with a bit of finesse. The offset index kills the harmonics and stabilizes the tool. Everything I’ve seen is working really well. We went from breaking tools to actually running production now. We’ve only used one or two endmills so far, which is pretty good.”
“Fantastic. The Micro Fury type tools have eccentric relief, which is a self-supporting cutting edge. It allows the tool to take a little dullness but builds behind the edge, so it holds up nicely. The eccentric relief design, instead of being a 90° fluting, is more of an X design, which breaks harmonics and stabilizes the tool. You can push them a little harder. The FC20 coating works well in both wet and dry applications. Of course, you wouldn’t run incanel dry, but in an application where you’re running some steel, a nice air blast hot hardens and oxidizes really well. With our in-house coating capabilities, we can tailor the coating to ensure we get less on a micro edge, keeping the endmill sharp. If you have a tight tolerance on a larger tool, it becomes even more important when you shrink it down to 10% of the original size. The tolerances become closer, and the fallout in manufacturing becomes greater. Smaller tools take more detail and time to run.”
“After a rough pass, it checks to make sure the tool isn’t broken. We haven’t had it stop on us yet, so that’s a good sign before it brings in our finisher. One of the biggest problems was breaking other tools, running the whole cycle, and ending up with a scrap part. The industry better understands incanel today; it’s not so scary. More parts are running incanel, and smaller shops are seeing it more in later-tier development. The technology and tooling are getting better. Once you start and get confident with incanel, you’ll run it all the time. It’s a good profit center for your facility.”
“Right now, we’re on the last pass, about ready to go and check. Alright, Steve, this is the one we just pulled out. You can see how nice it runs all the way around with a really good finish, no burr. It looks good compared to what we had initially. You can see where the groover was breaking down and the mismatch from trying to line it up. Perfect. How many parts have you run so far?”
“I’ve run about 20 parts with two endmills. It’s working out really well.”
“Thanks, Steve, for showing us everything we needed to learn on incanel today. Oh, hang on, Trevor said we had another problem over here. If viewers want to see how we handle it, like and subscribe. Tune in to the next video, where we’ll show you how to make it.”