Second Cut - Stainless

Crow Horse

Crow Horse

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I came across some stainless and wanted to give it a go to practice. I had a narrow window of time to practice and didn't have time to experiment with speed and the feed rate. I'm guessing (please correct me if I'm wrong) that I was spinning it too slow. My feed rate was slow. I used Cool Tool II if that matters.
I'm sure the quality of cutter plays a big role as well. I did try to use the parting tool to start a groove but it wasn't producing satisfactory results. The audible "pitch" was significantly different than when using the other tools. I did slow the speed and use plenty of coolant. It might be hard to see but I believe there is evidence of chatter in the cut.
Hair donations provided by my feline assistants......
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Light lathes generally have a hard time parting, especially stainless steel
Your results are not uncommon
Try to part as close to the chuck as possible.
A tool on centerline will chatter less
Minimal tool stick out helps too
 
Chatter when parting is almost unavoidable. I would put the stainless steel aside for now and just work with aluminum and soft steel. Stainless steel is hard to work with period.
 
Do NOT "play" with stainless, go in for business....

It will work harden so be are you are cutting and not rubbing.

Slow speed but heavy cut too.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
I was intending to cut a series of grooves along the length of the work piece. I have some aluminum and mild steel coming here tomorrow so I'll have more appropriate materials to practice with. I knew that stainless at best was going to be challenging.
 
416 and 303 are free cutting stainless steels- they can be turned on small lathes with modest DOC's
sharp tooling for roughing passes helps out
 
Crow Horse said:
I came across some stainless and wanted to give it a go to practice. I had a narrow window of time to practice and didn't have time to experiment with speed and the feed rate. I'm guessing (please correct me if I'm wrong) that I was spinning it too slow. My feed rate was slow. I used Cool Tool II if that matters.
I'm sure the quality of cutter plays a big role as well. I did try to use the parting tool to start a groove but it wasn't producing satisfactory results. The audible "pitch" was significantly different than when using the other tools. I did slow the speed and use plenty of coolant. It might be hard to see but I believe there is evidence of chatter in the cut.
Hair donations provided by my feline assistants......
Click to expand...
Do you know what type of stainless you have?
 
Do you know what type of stainless you have?

I'm told it's probably 302.
 
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