Thursday, June 14, 2012

Where the Cutting Tool Hits The Metal

The Feral Irishman posts this video, which is among the coolest things I have ever watched.  Yeah, I don't get out much.



Sorry - this video no longer plays.  The owner has marked it Private.

In a class I took once, they taught that the metal essentially liquifies at the point where the tool cuts the metal. The heat of the chips coming off a machine tool can convince you of that, but it's hard to resolve with flood cooling.  The systems that stream cooling fluids onto the work are to keep the tool from wearing out too soon, and keep the work from expanding so much that when you're done machining, it cools off and gets the wrong dimensions.

Whatever is happening, the steel is clearly coming off that tool like toothpaste or another liquid.

EDIT 6/18/12 1725 EDT - the owner of the video has marked it private and removed linking.  My apologies.  

10 comments:

  1. That's pretty neat. In some of the footage you can see a "crack" propagating along in front of the tool.
    Amazing!

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    Replies
    1. The first piece seemed to be peeling off, while the "ER steel" looked like it was being sheared of and piling up like paste.

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  2. Nice Mozart for the morning...

    Interesting that the surface flaws are a result of the material buildup at the tip of the cutting tool.

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  3. What gets scary is when (depending on the metal, the tool, and the speed) rather than chips you get a long ribbon of hot razor-sharp metal that comes curling off the cut. I've seen machinists get slashed badly by those at times.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah - even small lathe owners need to learn to avoid that curly chip as it wraps around things. Even from a micro lathe, like mine, it can cut viciously.

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  4. Good afternoon Graybeard,

    I just posted another amazing machining vid.

    5:45 EST Friday.

    CHeers!

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  5. "this video is private"??

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    1. AFAIK, that means it's not indexable, and can't be found with their search engine. YouTube has a privacy level that can't be seen without a password. This video isn't that level.

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  6. This video is private, thus I got here too late to see the cool. Dammit.

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    Replies
    1. My apologies. It was playing fine on both Feral Irishman's blog and here. I guess they only intended that for special customers or something. In deference, I'll remove the video.

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