Stainless Steel Grooves

[mud90mike]

Hi All

We have been asked to do a job where we need to make a tread plate in 3mm stainless steel, the only tricky bit being it has 1mm wide slots, 1mm deep every 6mm along the length of the sheet, I have asked 10 or twenty companies and everyone is struggling, we can't laser cut a groove, cant water jet it, trying to use a 1mm bit on a mill / engraving we have been told wont work as it will break to many tips. We have been told chemical etching but have got prices of 4k for 3 sheets 400 wide by 1600 long.

Anyone got any ideas as we have exhausted all avenues we can think of!

Many thanks

 

[123hotchef]

use a skill saw and its strainght edge and set it to a 1mm depth

 

[Paul.]

I was asked for something similar a few days ago, its a threshold for a goods lift, its to replace the original which is an aluminium extrusion, I passed on it, some jobs are not worth the hassle.

 

[scott0031]

It is an actual tread plate or a threshold as Paul mentioned? I make purpose made thresholds in small batches for some very posh places and i feel your pain when they say they want this and that. If as you describe it is a full sheet and not smaller pieces which are millable then i can only see it as a 'no can do'. You will struggle pretty badly to find a machine to take a sheet ( pending sheet size) The only machine is a gantry style which are inherently weak machines. Plus, if its a large sheet then they will also need a vacuum table to make a half respectable job of the milling to stop the sheet flapping about. Even if you could find someone the slot size is still silly small and they would need to increase it to a minimum of 3 mm and increase the pitch in my opinion. All i do now when i get demands like this (and i get a lot) is tell them what is physically possible and what is not and let then pick the bones out of it. You can only do what is physically possible at x cost and that is the bottom line.

 

[mud90mike]

Its a tread plate ( as such) which goes under a trolley bump rail biggest size is 1600 x 400. The problem is someone has done it before and we are abutting their sheet so we have to match. so somewhere somehow it is possible! we thought about the skill saw but as it is stainless and the blade thickness would be at least 2mm we discounted this method.

 

[brightspark]

your in business to make profit. I just tell people its uneconomical and try elsewhere . under my breath see if u can find some other mug to do it and work for nothing

 

[mud90mike]

Problem is its a very good customer that we do 100k a year for and lots of these coming up, End user doesn't like multiple subbies on the job as its open book so if they bring someone else in I might loose future projects! bloody designers!

 

[Seadog]

If you're matching something already there then someone has previously made it. You need a very high speed spindle for a cutter of that size, it'll need to be carbide. It sounds like a job for someone with a CNC router table.

 

[Kent]

Problem is its a very good customer that we do 100k a year for and lots of these coming up, End user doesn't like multiple subbies on the job as its open book so if they bring someone else in I might loose future projects! bloody designers!

Is it worth taking a hit on? To be honest it sounds like a conversation should have taken place a long time back when you took the job on?
The best answer is normally " I have no idea how we can do that or for that matter what it might cost", " let me come back to you when I find out"
Do you honestly think someone will find a better cheaper way?

 

[knighty]

no chance you can replace the bit it's butting up against too ?

that way you can go with a slightly different (workable) design ?

selling point could be it's much cheaper to replace the lot than machine a bit to match ?

 

[mud90mike]

We cant change the bit we are butting up to as they have a signed of design (tried that one already) May have to admit defeat on an economical way of doing it and see what they say. We have tried contacting cnc router companies / cnc mills and they wont touch it for some reason, more hassle than its worth I suppose.

 

[MattH]

I have a CNC router that will cut SS sheet but only at 3mm width and above.

If I were you I'd be looking for a CNC shop that has a gantry router with a right angle slitting saw head.

 

[mud90mike]

Thanks, Any idea who may have one? I don't seem to be having any luck with google

 

[MattH]

I don't I'm afraid. You really need to hit up the sign writers.

 

[waddycall]

Could you make it out of 2 layers? Laser cut slots in a 1mm top sheet and screw it down on top of a 2mm base sheet?

 

[Hitch]

Ive seen offcuts of plate like that on a job sometime ago, pretty sure its done on a shapper sort of affair setup, the cutter just ploughs it away, rather than using a rotating cutter.

 

[WorkshopChris]

Is there a practical reason it needs to be like this, or is this another situation where the designer doing the drawing has no idea what is possible and practical outside of their air conditioned 3d simulated office world.( I see this sort of thing with more and more frequency)
I used to run a router what technically was able to do that but its right on its limits and not worth risking shortening the lift of a 40K machine for.
A good big cnc router will do it but its the contamination with swarf and the wear on tooling that's the problem.
We would machine mdf and plastics day and night but limited aluminium and copper to occasional use a full clean and service of the machine afterwards.

 

[Kent]

Is there a practical reason it needs to be like this, or is this another situation where the designer doing the drawing has no idea what is possible and practical outside of their air conditioned 3d simulated office world.( I see this sort of thing with more and more frequency)
I used to run a router what technically was able to do that but its right on its limits and not worth risking shortening the lift of a 40K machine for.
A good big cnc router will do it but its the contamination with swarf and the wear on tooling that's the problem.
We would machine mdf and plastics day and night but limited aluminium and copper to occasional use a full clean and service of the machine afterwards.

Unfortunately the fact is that people have been trained in very narrow fields for well over a decade now.

 

[MattH]

I used to run a router what technically was able to do that but its right on its limits and not worth risking shortening the lift of a 40K machine for.
A good big cnc router will do it but its the contamination with swarf and the wear on tooling that's the problem.
We would machine mdf and plastics day and night but limited aluminium and copper to occasional use a full clean and service of the machine afterwards.

Exactly this.

 

[Rocketman]

It isn't that bad, the table for it in cnc milling machine terms isn't even that big. Sort of a Haas VF6 size I would guess and loads of places have machines that big. 1mm throw away carbide cutters aren't expensive, all you need to do is load the tool changer up with enough of them.

The only problem is you need to find someone with a magnetic table fitted, the 3mm needs pulling down flat.

Personally I would avoid a gantry router for it, about as sturdy as a banana. Now a gantry cnc milling machine is something different, ever seen a Mecof.