[chips10k]

I'm trying to drill;countersink;and counterbore a small laser cut part. normaly this isn't a problem but it's small and the laser cut seem to heat treat the whole
thing which is making for short tool life and long cycle times. is there anything I can do about this or am I screwed. please help me. I'm lost

[laka]

Try carbide tooling if you arent already...

[chips10k]

carbide chips out too much and hss burns up fast. what about cobalt?

[DareBee]

send the parts out for normalizing or annealling.

[mc_n_g]

This is one of the issues with laser cut parts. We sometimes get spring steel parts blanked out of sheets. The problem with the spring steel blanks is the edges are already hardened because of the laser heat. The other issue is tiny edges and bubbles of spawl on the blank. These rock hard bubbles and edges play havock with forming dies over time. They gouge out areas on the dies.

mc_n_g

[chips10k]

darebee:Thats a good idea but is there anything cheaper or less time consuming?

mc_n_g:What did you do about it just put new tools in and Is there any way to avoid this in the first place?

[laka]

Have the part Water Jet cut instead of laser

[chips10k]

they have already been laser cut. that will work for next time but this time i need to deal with the laser cut. there's no hex or crazy voodoo dance i can do
maybe rub a little KY on... anything?

[John3]

As for your already laser cut parts your best bet may be KY and the dance....

We had problems with hard spots in laser cut steel and learned that we could specify a different cutting gas. I forget what we used, but the cutter knew which gas he used that caused edge hardening and which one didn't. I think it was between O2, CO2, or He, but I'm not sure any more.

John

[JROM]

Try MolyD cutting fluid it's messy and smelly but it works.

[cansail]

If the material is Stainless, slow down the rpm to 360 or less. I drill and countersink 304 stainless daily and even high speed steel bits and countersinks last for 800 cycles or more. A little lube helps also. I don't have
the cutting fluid spraying on the parts, I just dab a bit of kerosene and transmission fluid on the part with a small (1/2") paint brush.

Walt