[Anokiernan]

I had no idea where to post this and since I'm using a Taig mill I figured I'd try here first.

My current project requires me to cut 6ft lengths of .25" 360 brass rod into .5" lengths. I need to cut a few thousand of these parts and am baffled as to a quick and precise way to do it. The ends need to be as square as possible. I also need to cut down 6ft lengths of 0.625" dia 6061 rod into 1" lengths. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[maxboostbusa]

lathe would be the best. WItha mill the only thing that comes to mind is placing a stop block at a set place on the mill bed and sliding the stock to touch it make your cuts until its through. then repeat. Probibly not the best way though but thought I would add my 2 pennys.

[Anokiernan]

I had considered doing it on my Emco Unimat 3 lathe, but at this quantity, I'll be here for a month cutting rods. Thanks though

[Geof]

You do not give any tolerances but if you are dealing with something like +/-0.01" your best bet might be to get a small miter saw and just use your Taig to build a small jig for holding the material. Use a triple chip blade designed for cutting non-ferrous metals and you will get +/-0.01 at a very fast cut rate.

[MrWild]

Un8imat has the speed for the brass, and you could unhook the leadscrew and put a push handle on the cross slide. Have a tube for the brass to rattle around in off the lathe, and a stop to repeat the length of dowel. You will get bored after a few hundred and after a thousand(?!!) you will be looking for a new larger lathe with a Harding quick change collet system.

[KOS]

do you have a miter saw and a band saw? Depending on your tolerances needed you may be able to cut the rod into sections and place 4 ( 2 on the bottom 2 on the top) in the band saw and cut 4 at a time there, while those are cutting, you can work the miter saw.

With the miter saw I would clean out your shop vac, and put the hose right near where you are cutting so the pieces and chips get sucked away so you can just keep dropping the saw up and down. Just attach a mesh like basket inside the shop vac to collect your parts so you dont have to weed through all the shavings. The miter saw is going to be the fastest most likely.

Unless you have some autofeed set up on anything this is going to be very manual no matter how you look at it.

oh yeah get some ear plugs for that one....

[maxboostbusa]

at the machine shop i was at we had to cut 5000 pieces out of aluminum extrusion we had done, each piece had to be about .750 long. We used a miter saw with a carbide blade and had a microswitch and stop setup on the end. A double action air cylinder was placed between the table and motor housing. Hit the switch with the stock and the blade would come down when the stock fell into a can that was beside the table the microswitch would open and the saw would return to the starting posistion. Worked pretty good and was pretty easy to set up the whole thing.

[Anokiernan]

Thanks guys, you've given me some great ideas. I think i'm going to go the miter route, and machine a fixture to set the length of the rod, pull down on the saw, cut the part, and have it drop into a bin. I think i could stay sane doing this as long as it's at a quick pace.

[Mathil]

farm it out.

[rowbare]

Thanks guys, you've given me some great ideas. I think i'm going to go the miter route, and machine a fixture to set the length of the rod, pull down on the saw, cut the part, and have it drop into a bin. I think i could stay sane doing this as long as it's at a quick pace.

If you are going the chop saw route and are making a jig, you might as well make one that allows you to do cut several pieces at a time.

[Switcher]

farm it out.

I'm with Mathil, on this.

Find someone close to you that has a screw machine.

We have a bunch of 6 spindle screw machines at work, they can cut parts on both sides of the machine at the same time, If your not turning the OD, man they could have that order done in no time!

Some of our machines have a carbide cut-off wheel, most have a carbide insert.

This screw machine is similar to what we run:
http://www.snmmachine.com/NewBrits/NewBrits.htm



.

[xiphmont]

I just recently did something similar; I had to cut 196 .625" cylinders from 2" diameter 6061 stock.

I rough cut on band saw (usinag a miterbox made of MDF), then did the tight-tolerance facing on the lathe. Took an anfternoon. Nothing CNC involved.

Monty

[metalbyter]

I had a very simular situation.
I had a taig mill and needed to cut thousands of 5/8" bronze parts.
I bought a 7x10 mini lathe, set up a stop, fed the stock throught the head stock and used a cut off tool. No problems the lathe more than paid for it self in a day. Its still in production.
6 months later I had some larger parts to do, so I bought a 10x18 lathe no problem it paid for it self in the first weekend.
The machines made enough to buy a CNC Syil SX3.
I now have 3 lathes and 2 CNC mills and a lot of cash from my hobby.
If you have the parts to make just buy the tools.

Mark

[Jarwalcot]

Take a look at this... http://www.kinefac.com/AVI/cutoff.avi

Good Luck,

[2muchstuff]

Been there done this.

You will need to build a motorized arbor that will hold several slitting saws that will bolt to your tool post. The motorized arbor will be behind the brass rod. Machine up some spacers and space the slitting saws to the length that you need. The tailstock holds a sealed bearing that has a .250" ID (support).

You feed the brass rod thru your head stock, chuck and into the bearing on the tailstock. Start your lathe and feed your toolpost into the brass rod cutting several pieces at once. If you set things up right the part left in the bearing will aso be the correct length.

Stop the lathe, feed more stock thru and repeat.

I wish I had some pictures to show you but that was a long time ago. We made about 75,000 pieces with this setup. Good luck.