We Eliminated 6 Setups On This Complex Part

The part you're about to see has never been seen by the public before. This is the piston housing from X-Core Aerospace, originally designed for the Lynx spaceplane and the first part I ever machined on a CNC mill. If you want to see the original project, head over to MFG Connect. This project that we're doing today is slightly different compared to the one I originally did back in 2012. That part had over six setups. This part has only one. I have a ton of experience in aerospace. I've worked for NASA, Virgin Galactic, but it all started with X-Core. When you're making parts for spacecraft, the tolerances are tight and everything has to be perfect. This part is pretty complicated with multiple planes, threads, internal geometry, and a crazy surface finish. We need to keep in mind when making parts like this, that one tiny mistake could mean life or death for anyone in the vehicle. In order to be efficient, we're going to rough this part as fast as this machine will let us go. This is the RX-65 from YCM. If you're interested in this machine and want to know more, head over to our website or email keith at titansofcnc.com. Now let's get back to making this part. First thing we're going to do is rough this part with a half-inch Core 5 end mill from Kenna Metal. When you look at the RX-65, it's not a very big machine when you consider that it can hold parts over 25 inches wide by over 17 inches tall. Now that we've mostly roughed our part, we're going to face mill and run our boring operation before we lose any more rigidity. The shape and surface finish on this part is complex. Since I did it in one program, I decided to tab it. We can talk more about that later on. Next thing we're going to do is make our bore. First step in that is to use our 3 quarter inch Core 5 end mill to rough it out. Since I'm running this part from start to finish in a single program, another operator can come up to the machine, set their tools, and make identical parts with confidence. Now that the bore has been roughed, we're going to come in with our boring bar to finish. It is really critical that we get these dimensions right because this is the main feature in this part's functionality. This bore has a tight tolerance. In order to achieve the best quality possible, we'll be using our boring head and inserts from Kenna Metal. One thing I really like about this boring bar is that you're able to attach a digital readout in order to make fine adjustments. Now we're going to cut the grooves in our part. To do that, we're using a 60 thou bowl nose end mill from OSG. Now that our holes have been drilled, we're going to tap the part with a 440 tap and a 1032 tap from OSG. These taps are roll taps, which ensures a better thread quality than cut taps. Next we're going to thread mill our part. In order to do that, we're going to use our thread mill from OSG. This thread mill was originally intended for a quarter 20 tap, but we're able to use it on our 7 16ths and half inch 20 threads. Now that we've finished roughing the part, we're going to come in with our quarter inch ball end mill to finish the outside of the surface. Now that the outside surface is mostly complete, we're going to come in with a 3 8ths end mill to cut behind the part to allow access for our quarter inch ball end mill to go in and finish that surface. Now that we've almost finished our part, we're going to bring in our 1 8th end mill to finish the contour, the top and bottom of our part, as well as do our tabs. This could be quite risky as our part is being held by a very small amount of material at this point. That's why it's critical to get this right. I'm super happy with how this part turned out. It's absolutely perfect. Only thing I want to do now is take it over to the tumbler to give it a little extra polish. This is how ideas become reality. This is why details matter. This is why we machine.