Hey Ryan, I was the guy that implied you were lying on Youtube, I truly apologize about that. Just one of those days where I made an ass out of myself in a number of places. Lesson learned… No more grumpy commenting…
Anyways, I did re-view your video and adjusted my 2’ x 2’ 3/4" Conduit MPCNC using an Amana 2 flute 1/4" up cut bit I had originally bought for Aluminum and tried to just skim a piece of standard bar stock I had lying around. router Speed was about 3k and feed was super slow (I’ll get an actual speed)
The plunge wasn’t the real killer because depth was really shallow but holy crap the Chatter on the bit was bad. I wonder if the conduit build of the MPCNC just doesn’t have the rigidity? I’m reviewing the base and seeing if it’s more other things but it really seemed to be shaking the machine, especially towards the middle of the machine.
I’m gonna try doing the milling in a coroner of the machine, close to one of the corner towers?
A 1/4" bit has four times the surface are on a plunge than an 1/8", meaning 4 times the load, And even more during a slotting operation depending on depth. Try using the specs I have in the video with an 1/8". The sweet spot is extremely small. I did many cuts to get it right with some coaching from Kevin. You can easily be going too light, or too heavy. Start with aluminum, get it perfect. Then try steel.
You can see the day before I put up an aluminum video. Even I have to practice. I cut all kinds of aluminum to dial in what that build likes. Then the steel.
Yeah, I’ll fall back and try a smaller bit. I think I have some lying around or will just order the ones your using.
I do wonder though if, that tight sweet spot you speak of allows for 3/4" conduit machines to be able to machine Steel. I will try to work through this and hopefully have an update soon.
There is another steel video, conduit machine, larger than mine. Have a look in the gallery for a link.
Have you milled aluminum yet? Is is going really well? If you haven’t you will 100% be wasting your time with steel. Aluminum is much much easier. If you can’t get that right steel will not be for you.
Hi Ryan, Congrats! Which steel is it? Is it stainless steel? I have successful story on cutting aluminum 6061 T6 and I am planning on cutting stainless steel. Just saw this post and thought it would be nice if you can share more.
Steel is new to us, and takes some really really perfect settings. Stainless is considerably harder. You might not want to set the bar that high, until you get a lot of metal experience under your belt.
I cut plain cheap steel all the time in the shop, I wrecked every blade I had in the shop trying to cut stainless rails until I had to go out and get an abrasive saw.