turning nylon

[chrisg3103]

never worked with nylon before and had a little play today before i went home, took a 0.1 cut and instead of swarf i got a perfect cone from the face or the bar strange stuff
tryed slowing it down but it just seemed to melt it and push rather than cut. seemed as if the tool was blunt but was cutting steel fine, maby try another tip though

so whats the trick? really thin cuts? high feed speed? any advice appreciated

 

[zardoz]

nylon is a pain to turn, prone to snagging and heat build up. Tufnol# on the other hand is great stuff, any chance you can use that instead ?

#Tufnol looks like a cross between wood and plastic

 

[Tomlt]

Chris,

when I've turned Nylon in the past I have had better sucess with HSS tooling rather than the replaceable type. I think this is due to cutting action of HSS rather than the shearing/chipping action of the TCT Tipped tools.

Keep the speed fairly low and take ligh cuts, you should be able to get a continuous stream of curly swarf from it when its cutting right.

HTH, Good luck, Tom.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Hi,
When ever I turn nylon,etc I always use a HSS tool ground with more top rake with a nice sharp cutting edge,works fine for me, I generally use my normal steel cutting speed with no problem, Then as mentioned above the swarf streams off in a smooth curly fashion,
Good luck.
Cheers Gordon,

 

[graffian]

grind nice sharp tools and it cuts really nice.

 

[lchris21]

As mentioned HSS tool, sharp cutting edge with just the tip lightly knocked off, lots of top rake and high speed. Feed according to the surface finish you want, but you can always polish with a bit of 600 wet & dry to finish off. All the best.

 

[chrisg3103]

hmmm, need to see if there are any ancient hss tools in the random bits that came with the lathe, lots of rusty drills i know about anyway


tufnol sounds nice but nylons all i have, dosnt need to look pretty so long as its the right diameter and round by the time i have finished with it just have to play about with speeds and feeds till i get swarf. no idea as to the speed though as the nylons to help make a speed sensor

 

[Weldingartisan]

Nylon will always 'give' a bit when machining, so holes come out tighter and diameters slightly larger. Keep the tool sharp and plenty of coolant. W/A

 

[chrisg3103]

well managed it fine used an indexed tip no bother, just turned it to a fresh tip and cut like a good un

here is some nylon swarf

only gripe was when if i took a cut of just the right size it would trun into nylon thread and go all over the place, thin cut just turned to fluff, thick normal curly swarf

 

[English Steve]

A bit late, but I came across this which may be of use to anyone machining cast nylons.