Cutting thin stainless still sheet

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Hi guys, I have been cutting thin ~0.2 mm aluminum sheets with a 1/8" ZrN coated endmill in one pass with great success but also would like to cut SS about the same thickness.
I don’t want to trash my coated endmills so I was thinking of getting a regular carbide endmill and start with very shallow DOCs. Has anyone done this, recommendations? Lubrication?
Also the technique of holding the stock with two pieces of masking tape glued together didn’t work for me with alumimum since it was gumming my endmill.

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  1. What grade of SS?

  2. Then look the cutting speed/feed information (eg. 304 SS is 100 to 150 SFM).

  3. Adjust your machine to these parameters and you should be fine.

  4. SS Prefers coolant to cool the cutter/material for better tool life.

Ref:

2 Likes
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302 Full Hard Stainless Steel

Do you think it’s worth getting an endmill diameter smaller than 1/8"? I already cut my parts in alu and the 1/8" is small enough for my features. I don’t want to be breaking endmills for no reason, also heat dissipates faster in larger endmills…
I would guess air cooling would be enough ?

Thanks!

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Typically, your spindle speed will determine the cutter diameter (If you have a router with a low end of 11k.) So my answer to you is to do the math as I stated in my answer above. SFM =

For me, I have always needed liquid cooling…

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Ok, by the way, nice job with the watch case :+1::+1::+1:

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