CNC Home Shop Milling Fortal alloy

CNC home-shop converted RF-31 clone mill running a bracket parttern in Fortal alloy. Part was hand-coded and run in Mach3 to produce the wooden prototype proof-of-concept model at the beginning of the video.

NOTE: I just got the technical manual on Fortal emailed from the distributor, it appears my feeds and speeds are both way too low, and my plunge is much deeper than recommended. I just want to caution those that may think the above video shows "correct" feeds and speeds.

Category:

Howto & Style

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• Home
• shop
• mill
• CNC
• Fortal
• alloy
• machining

[mytuberforyou]

It's around column mill. If you are interested in a comparably sized square column mill check out Lathemasters. Industrial Hobbies has an even larger one. Seigs are smaller. If I were building from scratch I would look at a square column mill and make the Z the mill head assembly rather than the quill.

[mytuberforyou]

NOTE: I just got the technical manual on Fortal emailed from the distributor, it appears my feeds and speeds are both way too low, and my plunge is much deeper than recommended. I just want to caution those that may think the above video shows "correct" feeds and speeds.

[mytuberforyou]

Thanks- I have roughing mills on my "to buy" list. I don't know about insert tooling of if it would be worth it- everything I make is one-off custom, so investing in production tooling isn't a real priority. My experience with inserts like on my lathe tooling is that I get generally better finishes on most materials with regular old HSS. Certainly I'd agree with you for production work, insert tooling would be a big plus.

[mytuberforyou]

Hi Goose;

That is a good point, ands you are absolutely correct (in addition to be the first one to point it out). At the time I made this, I did not know about climb milling. Since then, I do and it is great for materials like 6061 but on my machine, if you try it on the Fortal, it sounds like it is going to tear the machine apart. This may be a function of low spindle speed, low helix angle, or poor machine rgidity- or all three, I don't know. I'm still playing around with it.

[mytuberforyou]

It is- comared to a Mazak VMC with a 20HP spindle! This is a 1HP mobby mill in very hard material and using a feedrate override to slow things down to about 20 percent of what the G code was originally written as. If this were a production part, a roughing mill would be used and the feedrate would be faster. 6061 would also be much faster.

[CablloBlanco]

Nice work on that part sir.

[mavis4eva]

like millin do you?

[prosperous1]

Can you post more pictures of your Z axis set up? I have the same mill and I plan on converting it to cnc soon. Thanks.

[moto9ll]

is your mill a square or round column?

[alderaforall]

That was pretty neat, nice job. Have you considered using inserted tooling for the roughing? you could probably go a little faster and then follow with a finish E.M. My comment is by no means a dig on you or your work, I am envious and would like to have something like that in my garage to play with.

[thegoose7777]

Nice video but you're milling in the wrong direction (conventional cutting). Climb cutting is best for cnc milling for a couple of reasons. One, you get a better finish (especially aluminum). Two, it reduces the chances of tool deflection into the finished work piece. When you conventional cut, you force the tool onto the finished part. This is good for conventioal machines because it eliminates vibration, but not for cnc machines, especially during circular interpolations. You risk gouges.