Metalworking in a woodworking shop

[Cooper]

When Design and Technology was going to replace CDT when the National Curriculum was introduced, the new examinations suggested that all specialist workshops should just be considered D&T rooms, where any material could be used , even textiles!!
Head teachers and timetablers loved the idea.
Those of us who had to deliver the syllabuses had a dreadful battle explaining that keeping our specialist rooms was essential to do proper work. In lots of instances, of course, the battle was lost and the subsequent generations of young people left school with even fewer practical skills than the students taught the old syllabuses. Lots of departments were forced to get rid of engineering machines and even wood lathes.
So my vote, at least in schools, is for separate workshops. Of course in my own workshop I only have the space to work with both metal and timber.
Not so happy days
Martin

 

[Spectric]

When do you stop, ok keep metal and wood apart but then you should keep all tools used for stainless away from ferrous and then what happens if you start using nylon or acylic .

 

[sawtooth-9]

This is probably a subject all in itself - I had real problems with drilling 5mm holes in this 2mm material.

I am an amateur, and all the advice I could find suggested keep speed and feed rate high.

My drill press sets itself to 3000 rpm for 1-5mm drill in steel (no separate stainless steel setting) - I dialled that down to about 2500 and that mostly worked ok with coolant where I used a constant jet of water from a plant sprayer worked well (operated by the workshop assistant that I am married to) - I ruined a couple of (cheap Toolstation) cobalt drills in about 80 holes through overheating. I feel it should have been easier….

Cheers

When drilling stainless steel, I usually drill a pilot hole of around 3 - 4 mm the next size would be around 6 - 8 mm. I do this at a low speed of about 3 - 500 rpm but with quite a bit of pressure. Sharp drills are a must - generally I don't find it necessary to use cobalt drills.
I also turn and mill stainless without coolant - again with low speed. e.g when turning 1 inch bar I would set the lathe at about 350 rpm. With a slow feed speed, the finish is really good.
I have also cut stainless steel gears without coolant just keeping the gear cutter and feed speed low.
Just my experience - but it seems to work well for me

 

[sploo]

Yes, reminds me of working in engineering in the early 70s on production lathes where long snakes of coiled steel would run along the workshop floor and if you weren't being aware could hit your boot and run up your leg inside one's overalls - happened once, that was enough!

Indeed. Long snakes of material from a large metal lathe is a proper case of death noodles. One of the few things that makes me very wary when using the Colchester.

 

[J-G]

Indeed. Long snakes of material from a large metal lathe is a proper case of death noodles. One of the few things that makes me very wary when using the Colchester.

Then neither of you are using correctly ground tooling! - In the case of power feed, there ought to be a chip-breaker created so that the length of swarf is limited. If the feed is by hand then it's very easy to 'interupt' the cut with a very brief pause in the feed.

 

[sploo]

Then neither of you are using correctly ground tooling! - In the case of power feed, there ought to be a chip-breaker created so that the length of swarf is limited. If the feed is by hand then it's very easy to 'interupt' the cut with a very brief pause in the feed.

Absolutely. I do manually pause to break the chip sometimes, but when I'm using carbide inserts (which is most of the time) I'd admit to using cheap Chinese sourced inserts, and machining all sorts of different materials with the same insert (e.g. not using alum specific inserts).

I have a suspicion I'd get better chip breaking by taking more aggressive cuts too (as the lathe will do it), but I'm not a production shop so I generally err on the low side of material removal rates.