are dovetails a pain to cut?

jumps4

jumps4

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this is my first time cutting dovetails in hot roll steel and nothing is going as nfs speeds and feeds suggested
the first cutter is junk now, they suggested 480 ( my choices on my mill were 370 or 640 i took 640, wrong ) were rpm 2.4 ipm and i took a .010 cut
the second cutter i'm now running at 370 1 ipm .005 depth of cut
this is flood cooling and a 10 flute hss dovetail cutter
I'm glad i decided to write code to cut this
does this sound right? it is going to take forever.
knowing i know nothing about cutting steel i ordered 5 cutters before i started
steve
 
I have done some dovetails on my old X2 mill, and yes, it can be tricky. Are you trying to cut everything in 1 pass? If so, don't do that. The main trick with dovetail cutters is that they are pretty delicate, and they have a great deal of engagement with the material, which makes for bad times. You want to cut in stages, taking small notches out. Once you get the bulk of the material out, take a couple clean up passes at about 5 thousandths depth.

I see you say you are using flood coolant. Make sure you set it up so that chips are being flushed effectively.

When I get home, I will plug it into G-Wizard and see what it says about F+S
 
it's cutting fine now i'm only taking .005 per pass at 370rpm and 1 ipm feed
i forgot to mention cutter #2, it slipped in the r8 collet and needs to be resharpened now
so i sanded down the mirror finish shaft on cutter #3 put it in a er32 collet and so far its all good
i also just ordered a carbide insert dovetail cutter for the future
if i had to do this by hand cranking i'd go nutts ( or nuttier in my case )
the next time i try this i'm going to cut out the bulk of the material with a saw first
steve
 
One of the items that I will be making, the one that suggested that I make these items said that I should do a dovetail, well I thought about that for a long time. I came to the conclusion that I was not going to do that, instead, I am drilling and using a rod. One of these days you will know what it is that I am up too, but for now it is too early to mention anything.
 
Dovetails can be a pill ... to remove the metal and then to get the dimensions right on. It does go slower than most other types of milling, slow rpm and slow feed or you will fry the cutter - took me three $50 cutters to get that thru my head!
 
Always remove the bulk of your material with an end mill. Then finish with your dovetail cutter.
 
ranch23 said:
Always remove the bulk of your material with an end mill. Then finish with your dovetail cutter.
Click to expand...

+1. That is the proper way to use a dovetail cutter... The dovetail cutters dont have spiral flutes and can't effectively eject chips.

John
 
jgedde said:
+1. That is the proper way to use a dovetail cutter... The dovetail cutters dont have spiral flutes and can't effectively eject chips.

John
Click to expand...

I'd go one step further and saw most of the material off as close to the final line, then finish off with the dovetail cutter, the dovetailed cuts usually have a large bulk of material to remove between the tails, faster and easier with a saw than with a mill...don't ask me how I know :whistle:
 
PurpLev said:
I'd go one step further and saw most of the material off as close to the final line, then finish off with the dovetail cutter, the dovetailed cuts usually have a large bulk of material to remove between the tails, faster and easier with a saw than with a mill...don't ask me how I know :whistle:
Click to expand...


Sharon you got me thinking... I seem to remember you're a fellow woodworker. Did you ever consider or try cutting dovetails for drawers/boxes with a mill?

John
 
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