kevinj308

Mcmaster.com a huge industrial supply company. They have a warehouse near where I live but will ship anywhere. Great website.

any hardware store or auto parts store should sell shim stock. If not McMasterCarr.

Looking forward to seeing the slide when you're done!

Condolences to the family and friends. Kevin

Thoughts are with you and his family. RIP Kevin

LMAO

lol, I suggested maybe some cheap chisels from HF as test pieces. Should be about the right hardness.

Completely agree

Multiply 13 times .0625, its 0.8125. Do that in 30 seconds and you're feed is about right.

Full slot, how much depth do you ultimately need? Ballpark is fine if it's propritetary to what you do. Or send me a pm.

I'm not understanding that. 2500rpm is about what we've been discussing, and what gwiz has been suggesting. Did you mean 3/32 mill? Then 2 inches per minute is pretty close to what gwiz says.

1/16 of an inch per turn.

That's for a full slot cut, if you're doing less than that your feed will increase.

Harbor freight claims 4/5 hp, Little Machine Shop says .5 or 1/2. I'd trust them to be more honest. My grizzly g0704 says it's 1hp but really its not. .3 is 0.300 thousandths or about 5/16. For 30thou it would be .030. .300 is kinda deep for a full slot on a small mill, but gwiz didn't seem to freak out. I'd still be a little cautious there. Super slow feed and at least air blowing on the cutter if you've got it. And I'd slide the slider over to the turtle.

I'm an FNG too brother! I'm not a machinist by trade by any means. I'd say you need to make your hp .5 instead of 4, that makes a big difference. And if you click on the "more" button next to materials you can get a lot more options. I chose a hardened type of tool steel. I'm sure that striker is hardened. You could move the slider all the way over to turtle or conservative as well. That'll help compensate for the fact that we're using a table top mill without a lot of rigidity.

I threw this into Gwiz, used .5hp and 2500rpm. Used hardened D2 tool steel, which was just a shot in the dark. Interesting numbers, 2300rpm!!!! I know for me using air to keep the chips out of the cutter made a huge difference. The cutter really didn't like cutting a super hardened chip.

Forgot to add this

You'll need to type it in, I used .09375 and it rounded it to .0938. I set it up with .5hp and a max of 2500 rpm. Kept the tool stickout to .250 inches, that'll help with deflection. I kept the slider all the way to conservative. I don't know what the striker is made of either but I used a D2 tool steel, hardened. That'd be like a chisel or punch. Here's a shot of the set up screen. I know this sounds insane but it's recommending 2300rpm for a .030 deep cut and full slot. Take note of the feed however, only 1.4 inches per minute. Pretty slow!!!! and if it's a plunge cut it's only .3 inches per minute of feed. It's also recommending conventional milling. Which again I found counterintuitive. This was just one set up, you can play with the speeds and feeds and maybe find something that suits you more. Everybody's machine is different and I would NEVER argue with success. I'm just throwing this out there, might be worth the cost of one 3/32 mill to give it a try. And like straightup said, if you find a speed and feed that works for you write it down!!!!!! Keep a cut log for future reference. On a personal note I'd also suggest using at least a low pressure air nozzle to keep chips out of the cutter. Even a can of air like for keyboard cleaning. Anything to keep the endmill from cutting a hardened chip. I found that really helped my end mill life and performance. A lot of what gwizard has told me seemed wrong to me at first. Much higher rpm for cutters than I would have thought. Small cutters definitely need to go faster and 3/32 is pretty small.

This thread and what straight up was doing are what inspired me to get a mill. One of the best gunsmithing threads ever!

No prob, congrats on the new mill!!!!!!

For me it gives a good rpm to use and the feed I still do by feel. If I know I'm at the right rpm then the only variable is how hard I feed it. That goes for end mills, drill bits, boring bar, everything. The cutters start to add up after you smoke a few, I learned. It's free to try. I liked it and bought the cheapest version. Been pretty happy with it.

Me too.

@dskinsler http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCGWizard.html I bought a 1hp version of this for speeds and feeds. I'm pretty confident it's paid for itself already in end mills. There's a free trial period, check it out.

That's good, regardless of personality type.