Allied Machine guided insert drills.

[T Bigelow]

Anyone have experience with Allied Machine "guided t-a drills" or "stealth drill"? These are an indexable spade type of drill with carbide wear pads to guide it straight. We are considering them for a production job, where we need to drill 1.000" dia and 1.1875" dia through holes both to 8xD depth. Part material is 7075-t6 aluminum forgings, machine is a VF4-SS with 300psi TSC, cat 40 taper, 30hp spindle. Our primary concerns are whether or not 300psi coolant is sufficent, and will the machine have enough horsepower for the task at hand.

-Tom

 

[Mtndew]

Can you go with an indexable?
Spade drills are slower.
No experience with these guide drills, but Allied does make nice drills and for a great price too.

 

[Atomkinder]

The VF-4 will push it if our VF-6SS can (which it can and has). No experience with the guided version but a 1.375 spade at 2000 RPM was dead-nuts 100% spindle load in 6061. You'll want to feed it harder though so I'd expect about 130% load with the correct feedrate. Don't know about the through-coolant either unfortunately.

 

[drewboyer]

I didn't really care for drilling aluminum with a spade drill, it seemed to want to gall up. I used the 300 psi thru coolant and I probably needed more. Holes had a terrible finish as well.

 

[ManualEd]

Why not a replaceable tip drill like a Cham drill?

You'll be able to get a way better tip geometry for better chipping.
The flat spade drill bits are a bit limited for chip breakers.

 

[Ox]

Well - for "specials" I would think that Allied would make one with a Gen3sys drill tip if applicable. Those werk good in alum.


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I am Ox and I approve this h'yah post!

 

[drewboyer]

Well - for "specials" I would think that Allied would make one with a Gen3sys drill tip if applicable. Those werk good in alum.

Oh yeah I forgot about those, I used the gen2s and they don't like aluminum.