MecSoft Corporation

believe it or not im actually having alignment issues with my mill.. not that you can tell from this 3sided job

Hi Chris!

Cool parts.
Just curious... how long does it take you to machine one of these rings?

as a 3 sided cut (required in this case to access the underside of those 4 claws) it takes about 140min to 180min

that job typically would usually be done as a plain rotary in about .. hmmm 45min to 60 min.

depends on stepover too.. this was done loose at about 0.05mm stepover.

I assume that, because you're machining what appears to be some kind of plastic or nylon, your cutting speeds are pretty low, right?

To avoid the plastic to overheat and melt?

BTW, you consider 0.05mm to be a loose stepover?

I machine wax, and I generally machine at around 600 to 800mm/min other wise my surface finish deteriorates. typically i cut at 0.025 stepover as is the case with the first ring in this post.

Stepover is relative to size .. if i was milling the door panel of a car in foam then 0.025 would be ridiculous but as it is that last ring is only 19mm diameter and has 210 little beads to hold 60 stones in place, each bead only being 0.3mm big.

bigger stepovers leaves big ridges which need to be polished out, gold = $$$ so the less post processing I do the better for me

this one done,