Thread: Some Advice: Slitting cutter on a HM-46 Vertical Mill.

Hi Justin,

I have the same mill and have been through the DRO route myself, it ain't as easy as one thinks. Getting everything dialed in true is an exercise in patience. Reckon I wound my table along the X axis around 26 times

Anyway, with your question, I have used a slitting saw in a MT 3 arbor to make cuts in all sorts of material. One tip, you really do not need to run the spindle fast at all. On ali I run around 280 rpm with a slow feed. All the teeth on the saw mean slow speed and feed, for me anyway.

With PVC, I think you could safely go faster with no damage to the saw teeth. How about using double sided tape to hold the pipe either on the table or on a few 1-2-3 blocks? Have used the carpet double sided tape for a few jobs and it works really well. Just use some WD-40 to clean up any residue left from the adhesive mate.

Good luck,

Mike

I don't see any problems. To hold it down you could place a piece of rod (25mm or so) through the tube and clamp the rod down to the table, it wont move around on you then before and after the cut.

Dave

Actually in this instance the clamping will be the easy bit!

One end will have an M40 thread so i will get a lump of steel machined up with an M40 thread and clamp the other, say, square end into the vice.

Any tips on where to go to get a slitting saw?

Cheers

Justin

Try an industrial supply or ebay.
look for something around 1mm or less thickness,with a lot of teeth.
Try to get one that suits the size of your job if only for this,maybe 50mm od.
You should be able to find the either keyed or plain bore.