Nice- that hard skin is tough to work, i have a piece of mystery plate that I mounted a vise on. The flame cut edge is so hard only an angle grinder will touch it- so thats on the back side of the stand
That's odd, usually A2 is pretty stable. Even more odd to have it banana on an EDM.I had a 1.5 x 1.5 bar of A2 turn into a banana the other day from internal stresses. Cutting out a dog-tag type shape with wire EDM and heard the machine running in low power mode for a few minutes, went over to find it struggling to get back to its last position after a rethread. I'll try to remember to snap a pic. For those that don't know, wire EDM doesn't put any stress on the steel so this is just stress from the rolling process when it was made.
I should say it's allegedly A2...I picked it up from a pile of old stuff in the shop and the ends are painted the right color to be A2!That's odd, usually A2 is pretty stable. Even more odd to have it banana on an EDM.
I'm newish to all this and internal stresses causing lumps of steel to curl when machining never crossed my mind. Now I'm think it kinda explains some issues I've run in to before.I had a 1.5 x 1.5 bar of A2 turn into a banana the other day from internal stresses. Cutting out a dog-tag type shape with wire EDM and heard the machine running in low power mode for a few minutes, went over to find it struggling to get back to its last position after a rethread. I'll try to remember to snap a pic. For those that don't know, wire EDM doesn't put any stress on the steel so this is just stress from the rolling process when it was made.
Both will do it. The only way to get around it is stress relive and annealing. Even then they will move if your take a lot of material off 1 side.I'm newish to all this and internal stresses causing lumps of steel to curl when machining never crossed my mind. Now I'm think it kinda explains some issues I've run in to before.
You mentioned the rolling process. Does cold or hot rolled have an effect on this?
I've got a new project a coming up machining 84"ish by 40"ish 7050 plate, I am dreading how bad thats going to be warping by the final productBoth will do it. The only way to get around it is stress relive and annealing. Even then they will move if your take a lot of material off 1 side.
Aluminum moves too. When we cut big cavity molds, we leave 1/16 on everything when roughing out. Then they sit for at least 24 hours. On a 20x20x14 mold, it's not uncommon to have a .005 dip in on the bottom side after roughing out the cavity.
There is another machine comping out that does the same thing just a little different. I'll see if I can find it agian, it was in one of the mags at work.I don't know if there's competition using that process. The R&D data they're accumulating should be valuable.
I'm pretty sure that little endmill makes a terrific racket when it cuts. They need a fricken laser attachment.I translated from the html. : )
The calculations for every variation in material and stylus only make it worse. They hinted at heating some materials for better plasticity, but didn't outright say they were working that into the process. I thought it was funny when the interviewer asked about cutting the finished part free from the sheet. That's probably the easiest thing they do.