Narrow grooving

[tornitore45]

Never trow away metal. A wood saw blade may have a few teeth chipped but there are plenty more that are good or can be sharpened with a diamond stick.
Cut out a 1/2" strip around one tooth to the center hole and you have a good parting/grooving tool. Some saw have alternate teeth, you can chose left or right depending on where you want the parting pip to be left -- chuck side or fall off part.

 

[Cogsy]

or are you parting off without a tailstock support or a fixed steady?

Parting off with tailstock support is just asking for trouble. With nowhere to go the parted off (or nearly so) piece is going to grab the parting tool and likely become a high speed projectile. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[tornitore45]

Is OK to use the tail stock up until the diameter is reduced substantially and back off the TS for the last cut.
Tool above center: It must flex in order to cut and results in great radial forces, a recipe for disaster
Tool slightly below center: Good
Tool too much below center: The part will walk over the tool at the last moment, pull the tool in and make a mess.

 

[goldstar31]

I'm afraid that as no one seems to read what good advice there is available- for simply buying books, I feel that I'm wasting my time- repeating myself- for the umpteenth time.

My patience has simply ebbed.

N

 

[lennardhme]

Hi,
A word of caution on making your own tooling,
Most woodworking tooling use Tungston, not carbide, on cutting edges,- router bits, saw blades etc. This is a very hard natural metal & is fine for use on wood. Its disadvantage is that its brittle, & I would advise caution with its use on metals, particularly with an interrupted cut. Certainly around here the use of tungston tipped tooling is a no no for metal work. Carbide is a compound of Tungston & carbon, & is harder but nowhere near as brittle.
I'm sure there would be some members who could give a more detailed explanation, as in depth metallurgy is a bit beyond my scope of expertise.
cheers, & safe machining.
Lennard.

 

[Charles Lamont]

Lennard, somehow you have been misled. Cutting tools are sometimes described as 'tungsten', and sometimes as 'carbide', but it is always in fact 'tungsten carbide'. Woodwork tools often have the carbide (there I go) tips less well supported than would be expected for metal work, but can be used with caution. For exampe, I have used router bits it milling radii on aluminium alloy.

 

[Cogsy]

I'm afraid that as no one seems to read what good advice there is available- for simply buying books, I feel that I'm wasting my time- repeating myself- for the umpteenth time.

My patience has simply ebbed.

N

"Good advice" does not include a throw-away line suggesting tailstock support be used when parting. No caveats, no explanations, just a seeming instruction to use such support. When your posts are very likely to be read by relative beginners at some point, it is downright dangerous to make such a suggestion without proper explanation.

 

[goldstar31]

Sadly the 'information is 'copyright' and years ago, I risked serious litigation for publishing.
The good side is that the information is available for something like £30 which includes vastly more than just how to save a miserable cost of broken blades.

I have no wish to involve myself in such matters again. So the information is there, whether beginners can be minded to accept or reject such information is their decision and their decision alone.
I would have expected some encouragement from moderators but sadly, my help for beginners is not being encouraged.

Norman

A Further bit of info is that the poster is certainly not a beginner and the last information is that he lives in Haute Vienne and was/is involved in writing such stuff as injectors for tractors, and radio and quite a number of things such as 'working in a factory and using quite interesting techniques such as holding work with soft solder and making shellac derivatives with shellac and sulphur.

I didn't explore further and 'walked away'

 

[DJP]

"Good advice" does not include a throw-away line suggesting tailstock support be used when parting. No caveats, no explanations, just a seeming instruction to use such support. When your posts are very likely to be read by relative beginners at some point, it is downright dangerous to make such a suggestion without proper explanation.

I agree as mentorship involves more than just pointing to publications. I see no copyright infringement issue when describing personal experience which is the true value of a forum. When the more experienced share their findings at a pace suited to the original poster's needs everyone benefits.

 

[Cogsy]

Sadly the 'information is 'copyright' and years ago, I risked serious litigation for publishing

Using personal experience or knowledge is not subject to copyright. If you're copying and pasting copyright material, or providing the original material then you're breaching copyright and litigation is justified.

I would have expected some encouragement from moderators but sadly, my help for beginners is not being encouraged.

Providing dangerous, unqualified information to beginners will never be encouraged. Whether a moderator or not, I would have posted exactly the same response to your post (and this one).

A Further bit of info is that the poster is certainly not a beginner

This thread will be read by more than just the OP. The likelihood of a beginner reading this thread now, or it turning up in future search results, is very high/near certain. As such, recommendations to use dangerous practices without any warnings or proper description of techniques are entirely inappropriate.

 

[lennardhme]

Charles,
thanks for your post.
No I havent been misled, but I may have misled you by omission.
Some 40 odd years ago tungston [I prefer the Nordic version w/o the e on the end] tipped router bits were most definately sold in Australia for a short period of time. They are identifiable by their layered appearance, & I reiterate my alert that they should not be used on metals [of any kind]
I concur that carbide router bits can be used on softer metals- I have done this myself, but I would not promote the practice for the reason you mentioned.
Maybe tungston bits were only imported to Oz. & this doesnt apply to most forum members. These items as I recall were imported from either Taiwan or Japan, & it was widely known in the Industry here of the dangers they posed.
I only put out the alert in the interests of safety, & who knows whats in peoples sheds or where tooling finishes up?
cheers,
Lennard.

 

[goldstar31]

deleted

 

[Blogwitch]

I do read all posts on here and only write a reply when I can.

I have noticed that there has been a lot of purely bad advice given that could lead to people being hurt or have machine or tooling failure, especially beginners, who believe everything they read all because it comes from well-known members.
I have noticed two bad blunders in one post alone in this post, and I wouldn't like to embarrass the poster by showing what is wrong. They should reread their own posts, go and search for the correct data and modify their post with the correct information.

Nobody is above being wrong, I have been there many times, and when I do, I fully admit it.
Unless you can walk on water, you are just like the rest of us, fallible. So make sure you give the correct and safe information.

John

 

[comstock-friend]

The OP has gone missing and we still don't know the actual ring groove width (0.85mm or (0.334") wide). Hard to offer advise at this point...

And what speed was he trying to make his grooves? At 2.65" OD, with grabby aluminum. Snapping grooving tips is easy if run too fast.

John

 

[doc1955]

The OP has gone missing and we still don't know the actual ring groove width (0.85mm or (0.334") wide). Hard to offer advise at this point...

And what speed was he trying to make his grooves? At 2.65" OD, with grabby aluminum. Snapping grooving tips is easy if run too fast.

John

I have always found the opposite to be true most times when parting or grooving to slow sfm and you will get the tool grabbing and then snap. If you do slow down the sfp you need to slow down the feed. In aluminum I usually run at 1400 rpm on anything at 1.0 in dia.or under. Just my experience that I have had in the 45 years in the trade as a friend of mine always says "just trowing that out there"

 

[tornitore45]

I like to see trying to make a grove 0.334" wide with a tool 0.334" wide.

 

[doc1955]

I like to see trying to make a grove 0.334" wide with a tool 0.334" wide.

I keep seeing this .334 wide .85mm is .034 inch a heck of a difference. I have cut grooves down to .02 inch or .508mm and as I say I'd run around 1000 rpm on a 2.65 dia in aluminum.

 

[Anatol]

Nobody is above being wrong, I have been there many times, and when I do, I fully admit it.
Unless you can walk on water, you are just like the rest of us, fallible. So make sure you give the correct and safe information.

John

Thanks John, you're a great craftsman and a voice of reason. May there be many of both.

 

[doc1955]

If you never admit you are wrong you can never learn. I worked with a co-worker like that he was never wrong always someone else was wrong. Thing is this guy did not know how to do his job correctly at all. Man I sure don't miss dealing with that dumb @ss I usually had to fix his projects after he finished with them. So don't be afraid to stand up admit you were wrong it'd the only way you learn.

 

[Blogwitch]

Thanks John, you're a great craftsman and a voice of reason. May there be many of both.

Thank you for your confidence.

At one time I used to be a fairly good modeller and machinist.
Unfortunately, the last six years have left me without most of my machining memories, hence lack of posting about 'how to do it'.

I am going back through all my pictures of builds and techniques (thousands of them) and then the memories come flooding back, but at this time I am less than 10% through them.

So when reading through posts like this and a memory kicks in about whether the data is correct or not, if I can't remember exactly I do go back to my old books just to make sure the data is correct. There is nothing new in this hands on game, just old techniques and discoveries being rediscovered over and over again, except maybe the new electronic gizmos and materials.

John