Stainless and Lead

[robinf]

From the VR CNC milling materials library, I can see that for steel a feed rate of 75 mm/min and a spindle speed of 2500 rpm is recommemned, but I was wondering about milling stainless steel. Would these setting differ much?

I am also considering milling Lead. I understand this tends to clog the flutes of conventional cutters.

Any suggestions on speeds, feeds or tooling for these jobs?

I'm using a VMC1300 Pro. The stainless steel is just 1mm thick Sheet, the Lead is a solid block.

thanks

[Steve]

With the Stainless I would just take shallower cuts and use the same feeds and speeds.

What you may want to do is program a faster feed and speed then use the feed and speed override knobs until you get the best cut then record the values.

Lead could be more of a problem as it tends not to chip.

If you ever try to drill with a hand drill the tool tends to grab and can hurt your wrist.

Hopefully someone else has some evperience of this but i could see it stalling the spindle if you take too big a cut.

[Matt]

I have cut 3-4mm lead sheet with my Triac. I don't remember any problems with it clogging or binding. I seem to remember it cut really clean with lots of little chips but did leave an evil burr up the side of the cut. You can cut quite deep in one pass.