Machining Titanium

[Ariel Badger]

Does anyone have experience of machining grade 5 titanium and how easy is it to soften back if it work hardens?
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[bladerunner]

I've done a fair bit of titanium with CNC millers and jig boring setups. type 4 mostly which is classed as pure rather than the 90% Ti alloy of type 5. Motorcycle tax disk holders to A380 engine mounts... The engine mounts I could understand but Ti for holding a 1 gram bit of tax disk was a bit daft

general rule is keep the surface speed down but keep the feed rate enough to keep the chip loading high as you NEVER want to stop cutting. if you do it forms Ti oxide and that stuff is hard AF!

lots of coolant to keep the heat low and evacuate the chips which hopefully keeps the heat low enough and coatings like AlTin etc that add lubrication if the heat builds up due to hard spots in the material help a fair amount.

Also I would gauge tool life with contact time so if your taking a light cut or a heavy cut the contact time is the same so long as your not getting tool deflection etc.

oddly enough if your drilling a hole by hand on a lathe its childs play but once your cutting a larger surface area then thats where the fun starts, I cant say so much for the alloy version your doing but Ti likes gaulling and if it builds up on the cutting edge then heat gets generated quickly but I'd guess the alloys are less prone to this due to increased hardness.

If your doing a production run then it pays to spend time on the setup and getting your cut data right....Your not going to be hitting it like steel or aly so dont even bother. If your doing something at home then play safe with the speeds and just keep it cutting but dont let the tool rub EVER

As for heat treating to overcome hard spots if you've suffered the above, not sure you'll have much joy beyond annealing the base material and very much doubt you will revert the hard spots to a good machining level.
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