Unusual milling cutter

[bogstandard]

A friend dropped me this off the other day, and at first glance I thought it was a monster grinding wheel for my surface grinder.

This is one face




And the other, plus the edge is diamond impregnated as well.
But notice the mount, it is for mounting onto a shell mill arbor.



He told me that this is used where tungsten tooling gives up, and is used on certain aerospace alloys (hence the rounded corners, no sharp edges are allowed, they are a weak point).

So if it will blast those metals away, I will accurately resleeve it, and have a go at using it for finishing off the rough stuff I seem to get hold of.


Bogs

[CrewCab]

Nice find John, I suspect that might be very useful in future projects 

CC

[Stilldrillin]

Oooh...... I like that! 

I`m looking forward to seeing that beast working..... 

David D

[bogstandard]

I finally got this beast mounted up and tried out.

I found a lump of hard gauge plate from my strip down adventures and clamped it up in the vice. The edge on it was fairly rough, and not square. Coolant was used to stop the diamond face clogging up, and a 3 thou cut put on and I sent it on it's way. A fairly slow feed, but I did have it turning rather fast at 600 RPM.




Half way down the face, I backed off the cut, just to see the difference in surface finish.
The shiny bit was like a mirror, even better than I normally get with my surface grinder. The streaky effect is actually dried on coolant.




This one is definitely a keeper.

Bogs

[sorveltaja]

Treasure indeed .

Being diamond-based thing, it cuts almost every material, that is fed to it. Be it any grade of steel, glass, granite, HSS, or carbide.

I've used small and cheap, minidrill-size diamond wheels, and they just last. And last.

[Stilldrillin]

Ohh! That`s NICE...... 

The things I could have done with one of those...... When I worked for a living! 

David D

[bogstandard]

I have looked at ways this could be replicated for general use, very cheaply, and to work on smaller machines than mine.

The problem is getting it to cut to depth, it requires diamond to be on the edge as well, not just the face.

I have a project soon that I am about to use a diamond lapping plate on, and there will be a diamond cup wheel left over, as I have changed my mind on how it is going to work. I think I will experiment with that and see if it is robust enough to do the same as this monster does.

If it does work, then you could have a means of getting super fine finishes, rather than the dreaded machining marks. But some sort of coolant flow would be required.


John

[ScroungerLee]

The biggest diamond wheel similar to that which I have used is 3" dia.  I haven't had any clogging trouble running it dry, I think because the grit has such minimal depth there are no cavities to hold swarfish stuff.  I just have to be careful of overheating the wheel, that is the one thing that I find kills the diamond coating.

They sure last a long long time. 

Lee