Machinist Apprentice | Machining Speeds & Feeds & Nuclear Parts | Day 162


Working on the first of many parts for this new client. Everything has to be extremely clean, and I spent the previous two days washing down the machine in preparation for these pieces. 

There aren't anything complicated about these parts, just big, fairly straightforward pieces. The tricky thing with these is you can't use any cleaning tools like files, sandpaper, or certain Scotch-Brite pads. Even the cleaning process for these requires no brushes or sponges to be used. 

The part I worked on today was a basic plate with a few countersunk holes. My boss wants to go the extra mile for this company, so I used a ball end mill to get the holes' large fillets. I didn't realize it until working on this project that the boring toolpath in Fusion360 works with tapered faces quite well, and I was able to quickly rough it out for the ball endmill. 

I am also diving in deeper into the speeds and feeds area of machining, reading through a few tooling manuals, and understanding more of the chip-load and how it relates to the SFM & RPMs of the machine. I'm quite surprised how far I can push these tools by using the correct speeds and feeds (who would have known!).