Need some metal routing bit advice.. please.

[JDarvall]

Hi, hoping for a little metalworking advice.

What I'm looking for is a bit/burr (not sure what to call them) like the one on the far right of the picture I've attached,,,,to rout a groove in a plate of soft steel in the similar way to routing a groove/dado in wood with a powered router.

Like a simple straight router bit...but for steel. Got this picture from the carpa-tec catalog (p163). Its a picture of a HSS burring set to be used on wood. But no good for steel.

The flat bottom stopped groove I'm cutting in steel is quite short. Only about 15mm long. about 3mm deep, and about 5mm wide (5mm being the diameter of the bit). Thats it.

I don't want to spend a fortune for it, but at the same time I don't want it to wear so quickly that I can't even get one groove finished.

I was thinking of doing it on the drill press somehow at high speed.. by sliding the steel along a fence and lowering the bit gradually,,, cutting the groove deeper every pass

Any ideas. Where can I buy bits like this. No doubt my idea's flawed in someway since I'm no metalworker.

I would have done it with a regular twist drill bit, except that the groove has to be flat bottomed. ??

Thinking the bit may have to be diamond coated to be able to cut steel effectively. ?

Thanks

[Termite]

What you need is a milling cutter, these are used in a....wait for it.....mill.
Dont quite know how you would do it without a mill.

[glock40sw]

It would be better alround to just pay to have it machined at an engineering place.

Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor

[Grahame Collins]

Yup !
A milling cutter is what you need. Please do not put it in a drill press! .You stand a good chance of being badly hurt. Get thee to a small engineering shop, most should be able to what you want.

The drill press route has too many problems
1.Drill press is not designeed for massive side thrust.
2. Work must be securely fixed down other wise workpiece could come at you at a very high rate of knots.

please play it safe !

Grahame

[benyop]

You can get cutters like you pictured for steel they are carbide burrs or you can use a slotdrill but i dont like your chances of doing a very neat job with a router.

[Grahame Collins]

Whats wrong with me then?
I had a rush of &&&& to the brain after I posted the last comment.

If the kids at school wanted to cut a slot like that, I would have words to say if they did not think of this first.

Given that you have one or maybe a couple to do,what about a series of spaced parallel hacksaw cuts. The whole thing inluding the filing ould be done in say 20 to 30 mins.

Below is a drawing based on your dimensions. I would use a good quality 24tpi blade. That might cost a couple of bucks.The bastard file which you may already have will need to be used on edge and less than 5mm thick.


Grahame

[JDarvall]

Thanks everyone for your input.

Probably right Termite and glock about a milling machine and getting professionally done. Just that its for an experiment. I don't want to pay big bucks for it.

Grahame. Thanks for your concern. I think your right about the drill press not being designed for those kind of side forces. Just I have seen drill presses used in applications that do push on the chuck on the side....like, little sanding drums..etc. So, I sort of figured it may be ok, with such a small cutter and such a shallow depth to cut. But like I said,,,,I'm no metal worker.

I musn't have explained myself properly either,,,,its a stopped groove. It doesn't go all the way through to the other side. So, I don't think I'll be able to get a file in there. I should have shown this picture earlier (first picture).

The second picture shows you a ' two way cross slide vise ' (p97 of carpatec catalog).....I've got it sitting on my drill press table. See, my idea was I could clamp my piece in this gizmo, and just wind the piece, in a controlled manner, across the spinning bit......similar to metal lathe work...albeit, vastly insuperior of course ...... Its definetly not the best of slide vises. (piece of crap most would say),,,but for the degree of accuracy I'm after it should work and stop me from killing myself......what you think ? .....honestly.

[Auld Bassoon]

G'day Jake,

One possible ( I stress the possible as I haven't tried it) might be:

Drill, using a regular drill bit to a little short of the required depth at the end of the desired groove.

Use a file, in wee short strokes, to level down to the depth - and remove the concavity of the initial drilling.

You could augment this method, perhaps, by drilling a series of overlapping (slightly) holes, again with a standard drill bit, and then just filing out the required trench.

This all seems way too much work, however, when any machine shop with a milling machine could do the job in a few minutes.

I like the darkside, but there are certainly times when it's just too darned hard...

Cheers mate!
PS If you want really darkside, you could always just chew the metal out :eek:

[Dano48]

I have done it!, same set up as you have, only in aluminium, you have to be realy careful, not more than a couple thou at the time, slow and eazy and it is not eazy with the drill press as it's method of raising the table is not very precise, and it's best to lock the spindle right at the top so it has minimun play, I used a milling cutter that I bought at the flea markets for a couple of $ ,and it wasn't very sharp either, but it worked.
Again, the key word is SAFETY!!
Take care.

[kats1719]

Hi if you dont haxe eney luck with a small engineering shop you can post it to me with a small diagram fo wat you wont and i will do it for you in my mill. please dont put a milling cutter in your drill press .this will end in tears

[Schtoo]

Find someone nearby with a mill. No point killing yerself trying to do it by hand. Regardless of what you try, it's unlikely to be pretty, and might not even be functional.

I've been playing with steel non-stop for nearly 2 months now, and I might attempt it, but would definitely farm it out if I could. I would also try to find a work around. Maybe 2 layers of steel, one with the slot, one without and screw or weld them together.

Even drilling a series of holes isn't garanteed to produce a decent end result. Tried that, and it got ugly very quickly. Luckily I could work around the ugliness...

[JDarvall]

Thanks fellas.

Sounds like I should definetly give the drill press idea a miss.

Really need the bottom of the groove to be neat. The rest can be a little messy as long as the bottoms' flat.

Just one more quiry....

What if, I still use the drill press, but don't slide the piece accross the bit whilst its spinning ? I mean, can you get flat bottom mill bits ? And just drill a series of holes straight down.... sliding the piece over and locking the vise fixed between each drill .....

What I want to ultimately do is cut new knicker(spur) grooves in a Record 43 plough plane. Those trendy little cheap planes. I want to a install sliding spurs, one on either side of its thin skate, just in front of the blade.....like the spurs of the Stanley 55.

I've considering making one out of wood, but cause the cut I want the plane to make is so thin, I was worried a wood example of it would be too weak. The record 43's almost perfect for the job, bar the spurs for the type of cross grain cut I want to make. The rest of the metal work I'm pretty shore I can do myself.

Whats more these spur grooves ideally should taper in depth as well, so the business end of the spurs protrude out the most.

Maybe a bit too tricky for me. Was hoping brainstorming the idea may bring answers. Guess your right Steve,,,the darkside can be a little too hard sometimes. Anyway, thanks everyone

[Ashore]

Mate try drilling a line of holes & then using a small cold chisel the right width chisel it out , had to do something similar as a trainee as a test piece.
You can also try drilling with a flat bottom drill , small ones take a bit of grinding though


Rgds

Russell

[Schtoo]

You could use the milling cutter (square endmill I guess) and drill down, but I'd be worried about chatter, simply because these bits do cut on the sides, where a drill doesn't. I know all about chatter now let me tell you.

That, and milling cutters don't really drill very well as it is. It's why drill bits are still used a lot...

If you could find an endmill smaller than your 5mm slot, so it cuts on one side, you might stop any chance of chatter, but then you run foul because a drill press isn't rigid enough to take much side loading, so you end up with a slot that doesn't have square sides.

Can you make that slot run all the way up? Maybe a couple pieces of steel to either side of the 'slot' screwed down to the main body? Either a through slot/channel or a flat piece with stuck on sides is going to be much easier to do at home. If yer anything like me, you are loathe to take it to someone who might charge money for something that you should be able to do yourself, right?



(Psst. Hey, Aplicot. If it were me, I'd rig up a good router with a bit I wouldn't mind trashing, some way to securely guide the hunk of steel with good control and take really small cuts. Like a few thou at a time and slowly chip away at it. Yeah, someone here will scream foul, but I have done it and it works great. Just need to make sure you keep the metal out of the router. A double edged sword on the router though. You don't want to use a good one because you might hurt it, but a cheap router doesn't have the rigidity to do the job well. Your call, but that's what I would do, and have done. Just don't tell anyone else, ok? )

[kats1719]

Just a thort is there a model engineering club near you or a miniatur raliway. If you ask some of there members i think thay may be able to help you. hear is a link to sydney live stemers http://www.pnc.com.au/~wallison/slsls.htm