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Bismuth--Yuch. My new worst favorite material to machine
- Thread starter Bill Kahn
- Start date
OP here...
I got the bismuth done. See snapshot.
Whew. The idea to support the edges with sacrificial material was spot on. Thank you. See snapshot.
And I put up a slightly better bismuth dust containment system. See snapshot. Heads-up, turns out the internet says you cannot machine bismuth at room temperature. I would say, basically they are right. If I had read that in advance I guess I never would have gone down this rabbit hole. The macro shattering produces terrible edges. The micro shattering produces a fine fine dusty power that is certainly horrible to breath (yes, I used an N95, better than nothing, but still not good enough. And the cleaning up of this very sticky Bismuth powder is hours)
And nevertheless, after the best this beginner could do, I still had a few slightly shattered edges. See close-up snapshot.
What an adventure. If someone figures out at what temperature you are supposed to machine Bismuth, and figures out a hobby-ist approach to this, I’d love to hear about it. But, I think my Bismuth machining days are now just a story of my younger past. Not to be repeated. The definition of an adventure is you don’t know how it is going to come out. This ended up with some amazing twists, and some good-enough final product.
Thanks again for the sacrificial edge idea. Invaluable.
-Bill
I got the bismuth done. See snapshot.
Whew. The idea to support the edges with sacrificial material was spot on. Thank you. See snapshot.
And I put up a slightly better bismuth dust containment system. See snapshot. Heads-up, turns out the internet says you cannot machine bismuth at room temperature. I would say, basically they are right. If I had read that in advance I guess I never would have gone down this rabbit hole. The macro shattering produces terrible edges. The micro shattering produces a fine fine dusty power that is certainly horrible to breath (yes, I used an N95, better than nothing, but still not good enough. And the cleaning up of this very sticky Bismuth powder is hours)
And nevertheless, after the best this beginner could do, I still had a few slightly shattered edges. See close-up snapshot.
What an adventure. If someone figures out at what temperature you are supposed to machine Bismuth, and figures out a hobby-ist approach to this, I’d love to hear about it. But, I think my Bismuth machining days are now just a story of my younger past. Not to be repeated. The definition of an adventure is you don’t know how it is going to come out. This ended up with some amazing twists, and some good-enough final product.
Thanks again for the sacrificial edge idea. Invaluable.
-Bill
