+1 advice to get HSM advisor or another F&S calculator. A reasonably useful trick to using feed & speed calculators on less-rigid machines is to de-rate your spindle power in the program. If the Taig has .25hp, tell the software it has 75% of that. Also set your permissible tool deflection very low in the software for each cut. Since the Taig is going to flex anyway, you don't want cutting deflection added to machine-induced deflection.
Also-
1. Largest diameter tool you can use (I suspect that's a 3/8" on the Taig, but others will know better).
2. Shortest tool you can use - buy stubby end mills and choke up on them as much as the cut allows.
3. Anything you can do to get the chips out - mist, air, flood - whatever. Amazon has really cheap mist coolers for about $10-$20, even if they're terrible for siphoning the Kool-mist or whatever, they're good at blowing chips away. If the tool stays cool, the chips won't stick to it as much.
4. Try cutting those parts with an adaptive tool path rather than slotting. This keeps - usually - the chips from building up in a cut or slot. You waste more material, but the tool lasts longer as it's taking an appropriately thick chip and the chips usually have an easier time escaping the cut.
In the case of your parts, I'd model them with a couple extra holes for hold-down screws. Take your stock and drill the holes while in the vise. Remove stock from vise and drill a matching pattern in a chunk of aluminum held in the vise that was bigger than the parts. Tap the holes and the chunk now becomes a spoil-board for your actual parts. Screw the stock to the spoil board and run the adaptive profiling program at full depth (or two passes if 1/4" is too much for your mill). If you're worried about the extra holes weakening the wrenches, put the holes on little tabs stuck out from the tool profile and you'll cut them off by hand after you machine everything.
Just to put things in perspective, I modeled a quick duplicate of your spanner in Fusion (assuming about 6" long and a 3" hook). Set it up with a 1/4" 3-flute uncoated end mill. Max speed of 6k RPM. Stock was .050" bigger than the max part dimensions.
Time to slot (2D contour at 0.025"DOC) - 1 hour 13 minutes, based on your 3-4 IPM feed. I assumed you could go greater DOC due to the increased stiffness of the .25" endmill.
Time for 2D adaptive with a cleanup 2D contour finishing pass. (.250" DOC, 15% step-over, 54IPM ). 9 minutes. And only .15 horsepower.
And that's turning everything in to chips - if you hacksaw off most of the stock you can change the CAM setup stock so it only cuts what's really there and cut the time way down. And if you use the spoil board trick you can set your work origin to one of the holes in the spoilboard and then you don't care if the sawed stock is ragged on the edges. Just add a bit to the stock in the CAM setup and let it cut air for a pass so you don't bury the tool at 54IPM.
Add 10-15 minutes to drill/tap the stock and spoil board and you're still way ahead. And the tool lasts longer and less risk of chip welding and tool breakage.
Also-
1. Largest diameter tool you can use (I suspect that's a 3/8" on the Taig, but others will know better).
2. Shortest tool you can use - buy stubby end mills and choke up on them as much as the cut allows.
3. Anything you can do to get the chips out - mist, air, flood - whatever. Amazon has really cheap mist coolers for about $10-$20, even if they're terrible for siphoning the Kool-mist or whatever, they're good at blowing chips away. If the tool stays cool, the chips won't stick to it as much.
4. Try cutting those parts with an adaptive tool path rather than slotting. This keeps - usually - the chips from building up in a cut or slot. You waste more material, but the tool lasts longer as it's taking an appropriately thick chip and the chips usually have an easier time escaping the cut.
In the case of your parts, I'd model them with a couple extra holes for hold-down screws. Take your stock and drill the holes while in the vise. Remove stock from vise and drill a matching pattern in a chunk of aluminum held in the vise that was bigger than the parts. Tap the holes and the chunk now becomes a spoil-board for your actual parts. Screw the stock to the spoil board and run the adaptive profiling program at full depth (or two passes if 1/4" is too much for your mill). If you're worried about the extra holes weakening the wrenches, put the holes on little tabs stuck out from the tool profile and you'll cut them off by hand after you machine everything.
Just to put things in perspective, I modeled a quick duplicate of your spanner in Fusion (assuming about 6" long and a 3" hook). Set it up with a 1/4" 3-flute uncoated end mill. Max speed of 6k RPM. Stock was .050" bigger than the max part dimensions.
Time to slot (2D contour at 0.025"DOC) - 1 hour 13 minutes, based on your 3-4 IPM feed. I assumed you could go greater DOC due to the increased stiffness of the .25" endmill.
Time for 2D adaptive with a cleanup 2D contour finishing pass. (.250" DOC, 15% step-over, 54IPM ). 9 minutes. And only .15 horsepower.
And that's turning everything in to chips - if you hacksaw off most of the stock you can change the CAM setup stock so it only cuts what's really there and cut the time way down. And if you use the spoil board trick you can set your work origin to one of the holes in the spoilboard and then you don't care if the sawed stock is ragged on the edges. Just add a bit to the stock in the CAM setup and let it cut air for a pass so you don't bury the tool at 54IPM.
Add 10-15 minutes to drill/tap the stock and spoil board and you're still way ahead. And the tool lasts longer and less risk of chip welding and tool breakage.
