Indexable fly cutting

[Deko]

Hi folks.  I may be preaching to the converted here, but being fed up with trying to grind an ideal profile for my fly cutters, i thought ,would a small version of my lathe profile tool do the job. So hint to my offspring that a 6mil profile tool would be a nice birthday present, and give it a go.   In the pics below i have faced up some pyramids with the tool and a few seconds rub on a sheet of 380 grit paper cleaned of the machineing marks no problem. The wear on the sheet in the pic has cleaned up 10 faces.  I was able to run at 600 RPM and a moderate feed rate ( i have no power x feed ), which is much faster than i was able to do with my hand ground hss.

Cheers Dek

[ibuildstuff4u]

Good idea, I will keep that in mind as I too hate grinding profiles. 

What are the pyramids for?  They look neat.

Dale P.

[andyf]

A very neat tool!

Like Dale, I'm curious as to what the pyramids are for, and even more curious about how you set them up for flycutting  .

Andy

[Deko]

The pyramids are the base units for holding A)the drive motor, and B)the hour cylinder,on my fibre optic clock. ( Yes Andy, i am back working on the clock after a long and fruitless search for suitable alternative to the motor ).  The setup. First cut and mill two faces, drill and tap two holes in the base, then fasten to a block of ally, ( as shown on one of them ) mark out the other two faces on the side of the milled faces, cut roughly to shape with hacksaw, then holding in the vice by the ally block,and line up each face in turn with a hight guage to the scribed line.  Hope you can make sense of that, i can 'cos' i did it.

Cheers Dek. 

P.S. My larger fly cutter will take an 8mm tool for bigger jobs, but not tried that yet. PPS I was taking 0.5mm cuts with the small one.

[mechman48]

Hi Deko 

Lovely finish in your pyramids; haven't got a fly cutter..yet, but have a four tip indexible 2.5 inch face cutter which I intended using as opposed the usual fly cutter design. As an aside where did you get your hunks of brass & ally from, that piece of brass must have cost a fortune !! or you must have some good mates around, anything like that (size) is rarer than rocking horse s**t where I live, & is bloody exhorbitant at any local suppliers.. mind you haven't tried the scrappies yet.

Cheers
George

[Deko]

Hi George
              Thanks for the compliment. ALL my materials come from the local scrapyard, (being on pension credit, i ca'nt afford anything else). We are very lucky around these parts, as there are a lot of light engineering companies, (Bentley Motors for one), and also what is left of Crewe railway works. I have also been mates with the owner of the biggest scrapyard in the area for about the last 30 years. IT HELPS !.   The lump of brass the pyramids came from was 2" square, and about 15"long, but it is rare to find a piece that size,so i grabed it while i could. I dont remember the weight, but i think it cost me about £15 around two years ago. Brass is about £4 a kilo to buy at the yard these days.

Cheers Dek.

[No1_sonuk]

I first ried this in September 2010:
http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,850.msg38443/topicseen.html#msg38443

I'm surprised more people aren't doing it.

[cidrontmg]

Hi No1_sonuk, in September 15, 2010, you said  "Last night I discovered a flaw in my cunning plan...
Be careful if you try fly cutting up to a shoulder using an insert lathe tool.  Depnding on the design of the tool, the support behind the insert might not have enough clearance to get round.

Mine didn't  "

The "cunning flawed plan" is still valid, and valid also is (my words) "The surface finish is rather scratchy, though. An HSS tool bit gives a better surface, but it must be really razor sharp.", meaning a round- tipped carbide tool, an exact copy of yours. (Glanze SRDCN 0808 D06).
"Scratchy" or "mirror finish" covers a lot of definitions, like a gently tap means someone's as an almighty devastating sledgehammer whack... 
Excellent brass pyramids!

[Deko]

Hi No1_Sonuk
                    Sorry if I seem to have stolen your idea, but at the time you made your post on the subject I would not have read it because I would not have thought of trying to fly cut anything on the VERY small mill I had at that time.  It would seem to be a case of "great minds think alike"   
Thanks for the compliment Cidrontmg.

Cheers Dek.