There I was..... just standing there fat, dumb, and happy

[Cedge]

Things just happen..... universal forces seem to conspire when I'm in proximity to tools. I mean it's not like I was actually looking for anything specific, but more like they found me.

A recent trip to Travers Tools, for some small item, began innocently enough. There I was.... just standing there, FD&H, when the lady behind the counter told me it was going to be a few minutes before my order came down to the counter. She suggested I might want to browse their surplus and closeout items, in the next room.

On one shelf were shell mills from 1.5" - 6" diameter priced from $1.00 to less than $5.00 each. I walked out with 1.5, 2.0 and 4 inch shell mill cutters for me and several of my buddies for less than $25.00.

Ok.... so it was a bit like fishing in a barrel what with me being surrounded by machine tools in a machine tool distribution center. But that doesn't explain the other day.

I dropped in on my favorite scrapper just to see what might be in his skips. No particular needs for metal, but a simple scan to see what might appeal to my growing library of metals. The guy who normally deals with me was busy, so I wandered to the brass hopper and quickly saw it was a bust.

I walked over to speak to the guy and to let him know I was leaving. As I did, I looked down to see machine tooling being weighed in on the scales. Quite an assortment of carbide cutters, and such were contained in a plastic bucket.

Then the fellow who was unloading the trunk of his car reached in and began to strain. Out he came with another 5 gallon bucket filled with indexable facing mills. I imagine my eyes looked like they were glowing, but I kept quiet and stood there... FD&H until he left. $30.00 later I was on my way with a new indexable carbide boring bar (kenametal) and 3 (mitsubishi) facing mills, 3, 4 and 6 inches in diameter. I'd just purchased them for the same price they paid for them on the scales.

Now.... my question. I'm running an SX3 mill, with an r-8 arbor. The machine has never complained about swinging a 5 inch flycut in non-ferrous. My goal is not for large metal moving, but fine finish on a flat surface. I still have to locate or make an arbor to drive these tools. All they will probably ever be asked to do is fly cuts. Am I just overly exuberant about the finds or might they actually perform as I'm hoping? Here's the haul......

Steve

 

[vlmarshall]

Nice find!! :bow: :bow: I don't have any SX3 experience, but that 6" facemill might be a bit much.. I don't even like using them in a 20hp Haas VF-3.

Man, I'm envious. ;D

 

[Hal]

Steve


Did you drive straight to the casino to play the machines or at least buy a lotto ticket.
With luck like yours it should be easy to get in the next higher tax bracket.
Great find by the way..

Hal

 

[cobra428]

Cedge,
That's quite the haul! Looks like your planning on tunneling through some mountains

Tony

 

[bearcar1]

Great score, me, I'm still FD&H. Although I did just acquire some bits and bobs for my next adventure.

BC1
Jim

 

[GordTopps]

FD&H ???
What's that for us colonials?
Gordy

 

[GordTopps]

Sorry....just re-read the title of this thread..... :wall:
Gordy

 

[Artie]

Here's the deal, I pay the freight and you send some of em down to this lil place at the bottom of the earth... then we are BOTH FD&H..... incidentally my doc told me I had to become less F, I think he was ok with the D&H part.... so I said do you mean I have to get into shape? and he said yes.... then I asked..."isnt round a shape?"

Why do they remove sense of humour from doctors when they graduate?

Good score mate.... gee I wish I lived in a more central location sometimes instead of on the edge of the damned desert...

Cheers

Artie

 

[Bernd]

Steve,

The smaller shell mills would be great for fast removal of brass or aluminum on the X3 type machine. The larger one would be pushing it a bit. AFA the indexable, I'd say your spindle might take a beating as those cutting blades come around and take a bite out of the metal. The boring bars are defiantly a nice find.

F,D,& H plus Freezing in New York. Watch out for the snow storm Sat. :big:

Bernd

 

[steamer]

Nice Score Steve,

My VanNorman sure could use a 4" and 6" face mill.

Dave

 

[BobWarfield]

FWIW, my IH will stall with my 3" face mill if I try to cut more than 0.020" in aluminum. That's a 2 HP motor on a big mill, and its a 45 degree very high positive rake cutter, so it is economical on HP needs.

Face mills eat a lot of HP.

You may be suprised to note that the most expeditious way of using one that is "too big" is to remove some of the inserts. Of course is you remove enough, you essentially have a very fancy fly cutter!

The bigger the diameter, the more sensitive to tram they will be as well.

I like my 45 degree 3" for prettification, and a 2" 90 degree facemill for removing material quickly.

My G-Wizard calculator will tell you approximately how much HP you need under all these conditions. I generally approach my face milling by limiting the HP to 1 HP. That keeps things from getting too dicey and G-Wizard has a parameter that makes it easy to do that.

Cheers,


BW

 

[Powder keg]

I stalled a 6" cutter roughing out a part on our 20HP Fadal a week ago) Must have been pushing a little too hard)

Great Score!!!

 

[Maryak]

Nice Haul Steve :bow:

 

[d-m]

Can we hang out?
Rof}

 

[Cedge]

Dunno about the big face mill.... yet... but I popped over to Travers, since the needed arbor was on sale, and picked one up. Bolted up the 4 inch shell mill and put some aluminum plate in the vise for a test run.

I've got to hand to that little SX3 mill. It never backed up. Test cuts to .050 per pass with a full tool width cut rendered a beautiful finish, needing only a single finish pass to give a gorgeous flat fly cut grade surface. I then swapped out the aluminum for a piece of stainless. The mill never acted like it was breaking a sweat as it applied a near mirror finish. The machine is proving to be much stronger than it looks.

Since all I was hoping for was a slick flat surface I'd have to call this test a success. The fact that it didn't mind a pretty fair depth of cut comes as a nice added bonus. I'll be giving the big cutter a shot, once I've got the inserts to load it with 5 cutters, but if this test is any indicator, I've got high hopes for it.

I'm really tempted to go back and score a 6 inch shell mill while they are still on clearance.

Steve

 

[ksouers]

Steve,

th_wwp

You don't really expect us to just take your word for the finish, do you?

stickpoke

 

[reggie98]

After the seller of the tooling completed his transaction with the scrap yard, did you get his contact info? Cut out the middle man, he get paid more than scrap rates and everyone is happy.