Machining Titanium on a Tormach 770M CNC With Harvey Tools

In today’s video we are machining titanium on a CNC mill to make our logo come to life!
If you have never machined titanium it can be an intimidating material to cut. We try to simplify that process in this video by explaining what we did including some speeds and feeds, and the tools it took. While there are lots of different ways to accomplish this, and every machinist will do it differently, this should help give you an idea of where to start.
The machine tooling used throughout the video are tools from Harvey Tools which help us efficiently cut away at solid blocks of material. For those who don’t know much about Harvey Tools, they produce a wide range of specialty tooling to cut any type of material including when you have to machine titanium like the video above.
If you have any questions after watching this video, or when you start machining titanium on your own, ask away in the comment section below. To learn more about the Tormach 770M, visit our website!
Tools:
Variable Helix End Mills for Exotic Alloys from Harvey Tool
Corner Rounding End Mills from Harvey Tool
Partners:
Harvey Performance Company (www.harveytool.com/)
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[@joshualegault1095]

Harvey tools do a great job on most jobs imo. Ran a .02 em in some 316 stainless on a p1100 the other day and it worked perfectly.

[@ashleydelira9613]

What were your feeds and speed and how deep. thanks

[@ranjah76]

That titanium was made at my work. :)

[@timmallard5360]

Well Done! Talking through the cutting process is a really helpful learning tool. I need to try some Harvey Tools on my 1100 they are right down the street from me.

[@landlockedviking]

looks great!

[@OakwoodMachineWorks]

That's awesome!

[@doomraider551]

Way to go HARVEY tool and TORMACH

[@GeofDumas]

Shout out to NYCCNC for the blue tape method. It's saving me a lot of time with composites, which I was already gluing. The tape makes a better hold and way easier cleanup

[@bluedeath996]

The polyester powder coating tape they have switched to works better, it isn't softened by the coolant and the adhesive seems more resistant to oil.

[@TAWPTool]

Can' wait for the 20th to get here!

[@vioreltorj]

Nice job 👍 Do you use carbide endmill ?

[@luckycstriker]

Thanks for the great video! Can your machines also be used to cut an inside tapered thread into Titanium ?

[@tormachinc]

Absolutely! You would just need to make sure to source the appropriate tools, like a tapered reamer or end mill and a thread mill.

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

Interesting. A huge 'waste' of material and time. Very impressed with the Harvey tooling. The details of machining the titanium are very informative, and watching that tool go cherry and toast from chips was very interesting. Certainly a challenge to make a name plate, but making a mechanical part is far more satisfying since you could have made the name out of aluminum. Great video.

[@Afraidof7]

What was the machine time per side?

[@RobertJLessard]

Grade 2 CP is soft as butter and not what people would cut if they are knife makers. Grade 5 TI-6-4 alloy is what people mean when they ask if it will cut Titanium. I was curious to know what speeds and feeds you'd use for that. On my 440 with flood coolant 10-15 IPM at 8000 rpm with 1/8 end Mills I get decent results. Flood is Mandatory on the alloys as they have very low thermal conductivity so heat dissapation is a problem.

[@tormachinc]

Great question Robert! Grade 5 is a higher hardness, so we would need to back down the surface footage. Harvey Tool recommends a surface footage of 125 for materials in the 300-350 HBn range. Jason recommends leaving the chip load and everything else the same. We are planning on cutting more titanium, including some 6Al-4V in future videos.

[@kazlx]

What was the total run time on that? Ball park.

[@ClaytonwFirth]

Was that a SMW fixture plate? Standard option for M series?

[@tormachinc]

That was a SMW fixture plate! It isn't a standard option with the M series, but they are available on our website... www.tormach.com/store/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=38209

[@Thepriest39]

Out of curiosity how come you don’t run flood coolant? Most of your videos you use a mister. I have a CNC Bridgeport clone and I run lots of coolant. I made a pump system out of a sump pump.

[@tormachinc]

It is preferable to run coolant when cutting titanium, but we run the fog buster on this for clarity in the video. The fog buster did a good job, but coolant would have prevented us from burning up a tool.

[@josephpatchin3473]

How's the repeatability and accuracy? I know this is no DMG or Mazak, but just genuinely curious. Specially with the Titanium.

[@outkast187]

I own an 1100, i just ran 5 parts, were all within .001". Its never let me down. Steel and aluminum.

[@garrettp.5018]

You in SC? I see Lake Hartwell. How is the 1100?

[@darrylm7588]

What cam software were you guys using? Were those pocket roughing processes volumill?

[@tormachinc]

The programming was done in SprutCAM, using their deep HPC strategy.

[@darrylm7588]

I use gibbscam 12, its pretty decent for things like that but expensive.

[@outkast187]

Fusion 360 is the king, and i also own sprutcam.

[@caseycappoen251]

What does the Base 770m come with ??

[@tormachinc]

Check out the 770M landing page for all the info on the different machine packages... www.tormach.com/770m/

[@stephang516]

Have the new Tormach Dovetails or Linear rails? thanks

[@Daniel-vq9zb]

Stephan G pretty sure it's still dovetails

[@stephang516]

Ok! Was probably to expensive with Linear rails.