Is a Boring tool necessary?

[El$syd]

Hi,
I have a CNC mill and have been wondering about getting a boring tool set - Is it necessary and do I need one? I use milling cutters to cut holes of various sizes and depths, and have long reach cutters for deeper holes - this has worked well to date. Being a newbie... When would I use a boring head? what are the advantages/disadvantages over using a milling cutter as I have been doing?
Thanks for your help....

 

[Jasonb]

Probably not needed anywhere near as much on a CNC as it would be on a manual machine, as you say the machine will move two axis simultaniously to produce large holes, trying to do that by hand is not possible so a boring head allows the dia to be adjusted while the mill stays over the centre point. You can probably get a longer depth with the head than you can even with long reach cutters, particularly on smaller diameters. this is mine set to do a 5/8" hole on the other side of the casting thats 3" down, you would need quite a long milling cutter to do that.

A boring and facing head may have its uses on CNC for undercutting etc but not a standard boring head.

Jason

 

[Tin Falcon]

One of the beauties of cnc is reduced need for extra tooling. and saved time on changing setups such as adding removing a rotary table etc. and you can do things that would be difficult to virtually imposable manually. If your hole specs are meeting your needs then you have no worries. the only reason I can think of off hand to add a boring head is if you have backlash problems that are causing oval holes that are not round enough say a cylinder bore on an engine. In that case you may want to rough out your cylinders w cnc then finish with a boring head.
I see in your previous post you have a Denford Triac it appears to be a substantial machine so unless the ball screws are worn out you should be fine.
If it works don't fix it.
Tin

 

[stevehuckss396]

I have a CNC mill and have been wondering about getting a boring tool set - Is it necessary and do I need one?

If you are going to build engines you will need one. Some holes need to be perfectly round. Holes in blocks that will recieve cylinder liners. Bores in liners for pistons need to be good. If your CNC mill can mill a hole with less than half a thou runout you should be fine.

 

[kvom]

On my CNC mill I can't run slow enough to use a boring head for a large hole (it tends to be unbalanced). I do have one for the manual mill that I can run in back gear. The best bored holes seem to be those bored on the lathe, so I try to use that if at all possible.