What type of chips should you produce?

[Nelson]

Assuming you don't grind a chipbreaker into your cutting tool, should you produce 6's and 9's when you take cuts?

According to what I read, 6's and 9's are the shapes of the chips you want to produce.

Nelson

 

[Hawkeye]

I have a blue-black coiled 'chip' hanging in my shop that's just over 12.5 feet long. If it could be straightened out without breaking, I calculate that it would be around 118 feet long. That was a fun cut, but you can see how chip breakers could be useful.

 

[Tony Wells]

Way too many variables to make a generalization such as that. You'd never get 6 and 9 chips from some materials.

 

[4GSR]

I try to get 6's and 9's, but keep getting all of this stringy stuff that stock piles until all of a sudden gets sucked up into the chuck, wraps around the work piece you are making the finish cut on! Oh, it starts to breaking up slinging it out at you as you get to the end of the cut! Been there a million times!

Ken

 

[Alex]

01: I get long razor ribbons of very tough swarf.
aluminum: I get little curls of bright swarf and sometimes long stringy swarf.
nylon: same as aluminum but white.
lexan: long stringy white swarf that will stick to and burn the skin until it cools.

I can relate 01 tool steel, Nasty if you get a bit that is purple hot go between your watch strap and the inside of your wrist! Double Ouch.

What is lexan? Never heard of it.
Have you ever heard of macaw, It may be called somthing different in the U.S. But is a machinable glass ceramic.

Ally, Depends on what grade. The harder the grade the smaller the chip.

Alex.

 

[Tenn]

David,

I think Prespex, Lucite, and Plexiglas are Acrylics.
Where as Lexan, Makrolon tend to be refered to as a polycarbonate.

This shows the main differences
http://www.hydrosight.com/technology/polycarbonate_vs_acrylic.php

DaveH

Very informative Thanks DaveH 8) 8) 8)

Just looked up the weather in Kempton Park I'm coming your way :laugh: :laugh: Just remembered it's winter in the southern hemisphere, we're mid-summer up here with HOT and humid. Your weather looks lovely right now

 

[Pacer]

Way too many variables to make a generalization such as that. You'd never get 6 and 9 chips from some materials.

Tony says it all right here - theres no way to get consistent chips/curls/strings on the range of metals out there. I use mostly scrap yard iron/steel and will find the gamut of cutting surprises. Often I will start taking, say, a 2" piece down to 1/2-2" and start out making those horrible loooong sharp strings, and the more I cut the less strings and toward the finish cuts be making beautiful 9's & J's .....

 

[Tenn]

Chris,

So when are you coming here?

DaveH

Would love to today but am flying to CA to visit the grandchildren next month so have spent my airfare for the time being. The wife has been to Johannesburg how far is that from you ??
~Chris

 

[Tenn]

DaveH

Awesome my budget needs to come closer to my wish list :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Guess that's what dreams are made of ?? I've never been out of the USA except for a trip to St Mary's, Ontario, Canada years ago. Canada hardly qualified at that time as travel abroad being still in N America.

) ) )

~Chris

 

[george wilson]

Unless you want LONG,hot,sharp swarf coming off your lathe,better grind a chip breaker. In the late 19th.C.,lathe designers did not see how lathes could be made to run much faster because of the huge amount of long rolls of chips that would be generated. Then,someone invented the chip breaker and changed all that. With HSS and later carbide,lathes could be made to cut many times faster,and new lathes with better bearings had to be invented to run fast enough for the new cutting tools.