Ceramic Milling Tips

How to mill macor.

Ceramic milling tips. We still run older mitsui seiki horizontal mills and older mori seiki lathes because they are so rigid. Maybe that s 3 but i m going to call it one. Ceramic inserts cutter for roughing hrsa ceramic milling typically runs at 20 to 30 times the speed of carbide although at lower feed rates 0 1 mm z 0 0039 in z which results in high productivity gains. Top 7 tips on machining inconel hastelloy monel and other nickel alloys.

Carbide is safe and easy to use says steven howard engineering and marketing manager for ntk cutting tools. Ceramic insert cutters like the one in this application run 8 to 10 times faster than carbide. Do not use open type machines the chips generated during machining are at extremely high temperatures. In general it is a continuous machining process that allows a single insert to be engaged in the cut for relatively long periods of time.

Under the spk brand ceramtec offers a unique program in terms of scope diversity and performance of indexable inserts made of ceramic cutting materials polycrystalline cubic boron nitrides cbn and cermets for turning grooving milling and boring in a wide variety of industrial applications. Depths of cut are as for turning. Climb milling prevents material being pulled off the edge of the macor. Machine rigidity fixture rigidity and tooling rigidity.

Always use water cooling when grinding macor. 23 to 35 sfpm 1 to 1 4 meters per minute. Milling macor speeds and feeds. The ceramic binder adds wear resistance to the cbn which is otherwise prone to chemical wear.

Machining with ceramic end mills at high temperatures can affect the outermost layer of the machined material therefore a final machining allowance must remain. Due to intermittent cutting it is a much cooler operation than turning. This is an excellent vehicle to generate the high temperatures that make ceramic inserts perform optimally. Hard turning and milling turning is an almost ideal operation for ceramics.

Typical head speeds are 1000 1500 rpm with a chip load of 0 05mm per tooth. Cbn is brazed onto a cemented carbide carrier to form an insert. I have used a white colored ceramic called macor which can be machined even with hss tools although it does wear them away a bit faster. If you can t machine the original ceramic parts which may take ages and simply wear out grinding tips is it possible to replace the original ceramic inserts with another ceramic that can be machined.

For some shops the flexibility of inserted carbide cutting tools might be too much of a good thing.