Lathe Operations question (Swarf control)

Boswell

Hobby Machinist since 2010
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Feb 27, 2014
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Today I was having to cut down 8 inches of a 2.5" diameter 6071 Aluminum round bar. I was taking 0.1 cuts. This generates a nasty swarf tangle and I would have to stop everything several times during the roughing cuts to clear out the swarf mess. I then started putting the feed in neutral for a second or two several times during each pass to break the long swarf chip. This helped although it did not eliminate the need to stop the machine to clear out the next, but I did not have to do it as often.

Now my questions
Q1: Does it hurt the machine (Grizzly G4003) to move the feed lever into neutral and back so often ?
Q2: Is there a better way to avoid (or clear) the birds nest of nasty aluminum swarf during a long cut like this?
 
Grinding a tool with a semi circular chip breaker may help shape the chip into a spring like shape, with proper speed and feed they should break off when they get long enough; also, use a lubricant like WD 40 or kerosene.
 
If you're getting stringy chips , throw your feed up or use a chip breaker as stated above .
 
I have seen old guys on piecework have a large bin on their left hand side and they would use a L shaped bit of i/4 rod to feed the swarf into the bin wearing a leather glove.
 
You might try increasing your depth of cut and boosting feed a bit. A deep enough cut in aluminum at a good feed rate will usually give you chips instead of strings.
 
Another method that I had recently seen on Frank Fords website is to make several radial cuts to make the majority of material removal an interrupted cut operation. I know this would work best on something larger in diameter.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.
Some more information: I am getting "springs" and sometimes they break before tangling but other times they get go on and on until they eventually tangle on the tool or the spindle. I have tried WD-40 but did not see any better chip breaking. I will experiment with higher and lower feed rates. Still learning the limits of the lathe with respect to maximum depth of cut and feed rates.
 
Increase the spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut until the chip breaks when roughing.
This is 6061, around 600 SFM cut speed, .100" Doc and .012" Per Revolution feed rate. The chips break into very small pieces, I couldn't push it much harder because it is a rather thin walled ring that was water jet cut from plate.
And use flood coolant if possible, when the chips are hot when they come off this makes them far more difficult to manage.
 
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I have a long (12") needle nose pliers that I use to clear chips on the fly when all else fails.
 
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