Machine maintenance can make all the difference in the world inside your shop. Whether you’re talking about HVAC, hand tools, or machine tools, keeping your shop clean and maintained will not only make things last longer, but it will also help you become/stay efficient.
When you’re making parts, there are a lot of things to keep in mind… tolerances, feeds and speeds, tool wear, workholding… the list goes on and on. Whether you’re making your own parts or stuff for a customer or even shipping components off for Xometry, the final finish of your product is important to remember.
We are quite proud of the value that Tormach CNC machines bring to our customers, and we've worked to make sure that your machine can grow with you. That means that you don't need to buy all the bells-and-whistles until you're ready!
While we all know the importance of picking the right machine tool for the right job, it’s important to remember that there is so much more to making chips than just the mill or lathe you are using. Choosing the right tools and workholding for your job is just as important, if not more so!
Incorrect speeds and feeds are a surefire way to make terrible noises, break tools, and scrap parts. Initial attempts to machine this hardened ring gear made noises that would make any machinist shudder. Through experimentation, we optimized a recipe that is reliable, leaves a great surface finish, and provides good tool life.
As covered in our 10 Things No One Tells You About Machining article, runout is everywhere! However with most tools we use this amount is negligible. Using, say, a 3/8” endmill with .0008” of TIR won’t have significant consequences (especially when roughing). Unless you’re chasing tenths, the runout is such a small percentage of the tool’s overall diameter (~0.21%) that it wont have any noticeable affects. As you small diameter tools, this percentage begins to increase. Using a 1/32” endmill with the same runout amounts to a TIR that is 2.56% (about a 10x increase!). This can result in uneven wear, chatter, bad surface finish, missing tolerances, and even broken tools.
