Boreing Holes ?
There must be a better more automatic way !
I have a lathe, that I love dearly, I have added stepping motors to it so
it's kinda CNC
however one of the tasks I do is to use the dead center & manually drill a
hole so that a boring bar
can be used to bring it out to the required size.
I want to combine both steps into an automatic cycle, that runs without me
turning the wheels.
My thought was to mount the drill bit on the carriage, lets call it a 1/2"
drill bit 6" long.
About 1" down from the cutting end, Tig weld a piece of HSS in the flute,
sticking out maybe .050"
as the drill enters the material " usually 2" aluminum 3 to 5 " long."
After the first inch the HSS will also start cutting & opening up the hole
further. Then pretending this is also a boring bar keep making passes until
the desired ID is reached.
I assume that a drilling or pecking cycle would be used to get the bit
through & keep the chips out.
What method do you use? Is there a tool for this kind of work?
I'm not concerned about speed, even .010" cuts as long as I can walk away
are fine.
Helpful hints from real machinists are most welcome.
Thanks for listening
Peter
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