How you tou part large (3 or 4" diameter") stainless (316) parts on a lathe?
On aluminum I use a flat knife/bar stle cutoff tool.
I cut a little exten and cut some more.
When I tried this on stailess the tool was not happy, even with lots of cutting fluid.

I can buy indexable carbine cutoff tools, but looking at them in the catalog it looks like they
only cut 0.1 or 0.25 deep beore the face of the holder hits the workpeice.

If I need to do a 4" parting off of 316 stainless what should I use?

Specifc tool/catalog number recomendations would be really useful.


Paul

wrote in message
...

How you tou part large (3 or 4" diameter") stainless (316) parts on a
lathe?
On aluminum I use a flat knife/bar stle cutoff tool.
I cut a little exten and cut some more.
When I tried this on stailess the tool was not happy, even with lots of
cutting fluid.

I can buy indexable carbine cutoff tools, but looking at them in the
catalog it looks like they
only cut 0.1 or 0.25 deep beore the face of the holder hits the workpeice.

If I need to do a 4" parting off of 316 stainless what should I use?

Specifc tool/catalog number recomendations would be really useful.


Paul

It depends somewhat on how rigid your lathe is. If it's a fairly big, modern
production lathe, or a very solid toolroom lathe like a Hardinge, you can go
for the indexable carbide tools, get the application data from the cutting
tools supplier, and go for it. If it's an old South Bend or Atlas, you have
trouble. Cutting off 316 stainless in my 10L South Bend requires a
near-perfect balance between aggressive feed and staying within the power
and stiffness capabilities of the machine. The biggest piece of 316 stock
I've cut off with mine was 2" bar, and it wasn't easy. I used a HSS blade
type cutoff tool. If I recall correctly, I broke one or two of them getting
it right.

--
Ed Huntress

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:12:27 -0800, wrote:


How you tou part large (3 or 4" diameter") stainless (316) parts on a lathe?
On aluminum I use a flat knife/bar stle cutoff tool.
I cut a little exten and cut some more.
When I tried this on stailess the tool was not happy, even with lots of cutting fluid.

I can buy indexable carbine cutoff tools, but looking at them in the catalog it looks like they
only cut 0.1 or 0.25 deep beore the face of the holder hits the workpeice.

If I need to do a 4" parting off of 316 stainless what should I use?

If you have a small not particularly rigid lathe....part it off on the
bandsaw.

Gunner


Specifc tool/catalog number recomendations would be really useful.


Paul

You can do it on a big machine with coolant and index tooling, but it is
uneconomical in both time and tools. Use a bandsaw.
Steve

wrote in message
...

How you tou part large (3 or 4" diameter") stainless (316) parts on a
lathe?
On aluminum I use a flat knife/bar stle cutoff tool.
I cut a little exten and cut some more.
When I tried this on stailess the tool was not happy, even with lots of
cutting fluid.

I can buy indexable carbine cutoff tools, but looking at them in the
catalog it looks like they
only cut 0.1 or 0.25 deep beore the face of the holder hits the workpeice.

If I need to do a 4" parting off of 316 stainless what should I use?

Specifc tool/catalog number recomendations would be really useful.


Paul

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Tom Gardner wrote:

wrote in message
. ..

How you tou part large (3 or 4" diameter") stainless (316) parts on a lathe?
On aluminum I use a flat knife/bar stle cutoff tool.
I cut a little exten and cut some more.
When I tried this on stailess the tool was not happy, even with lots of
cutting fluid.

snip

Parting ALWAYS involves burying chicken guts in the back yard during a full moon
while burning black candles. With big SS bars you're going to need a lot of
chickens! Get a bandsaw.



Troll guts are more effective, but it's impossible to get a permit
from the EPA.

Why else do you think they say, "Parting is such sweet sorrow? ;-)


Well, I used to think so. Now that I have a "real" lathe, I
have found out that rigidity IS really the answer. I used to
have a 10" Atlas, then a 12" Craftsman. Both were not rigid
enough to do decent parting-off, even of aluminum. The tool
would wander, and then bind up with chips, and the lathe would
stall. Now, I have a 15" Sheldon R15-6 that I laboriously
restored, and it is quite amazing. I still part things off on
the bandsaw out of habit, but on occasion I do it on the lathe
and it is pretty easy. But, I'd approach 4" dia. stainless with
much more caution.

Ed Hunterss' comments on being at the power limits of the lathe
are right on. You need an agressive feed to stay under the
work-hardened layer the tool is causing. Basically, you turn on
the flood coolant, engage the power crossfeed and don't stop for
anything until the cut is through.

Jon