Lathe recommendations for tool steel with live tools

[thunderskunk]

Mornin,

We’re looking for a lathe:

• Typical parts are .375-2.0” OD 1045 tool steel. It has a front post with a .0005” OD tolerance for a shrink fit and flats along it’s 8” length. Machined before heat treat. Very simple geometry.
• Barfed up to 2” OD, say it’s a 12’ barfeeder
• Live tooling for cutting flats (not polygon cutting, something like a shell mill. Not complex, but needs a good finish)
• Ideally has a subspindle, but probably could do without.

The Doosan/DN Puma comes to mind. New: It’s priced the same as it’s Haas equivalent, and we’re not interested in Haas. We have Hardinges, but older vintages without live tooling.

Given it’s not super complicated geometry, we could probably get away with a used unit. I see quite a few Mori Seiki machines out there, though I have no experience with them. Any thoughts?

 

[Mr. Atoz]

Mori NLX. Bullet proof solid. If you buy new, it will still be cranking those parts out way into the future. We have Haas, Mazak and Mori. Mori is by far the best of the three.

 

[Ox]

I have ran face mills in my Hardinge's, but if that is wehat you plan to doo routinely, my first thought is to go with a Mori with the motor in the turret, rather than a long geartrain for the lives to deal with the interrupted cuts.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[Ajrogers1988]

If you want to stick with Hardinge you could contact terry iverson at Iverson Co and he could sell you a used hardinge turnkey ready to go. He fixes them up and resells used machines. They were a Dealer for Hardinge until Hardinge went the Gosiger route. The Hardinge T51 and Quest 8/51 would get you to 2" bar capacity. Other machines to look at would be Nakamura Tome, Miyano, and Okuma.

 

[bigjon61]

Can't go wrong with the DN/Doosan, as long as the support is good in your area. We have fleet of Lynxs (Lynxi?) and a couple of Pumas of varying models (one sub, one with live tooling and no sub etc). After having used different brands of live tool heads, I'm not sold on the Eppinger live tool heads they include with the machine. We are actually installing a new Lynx 2100LY this week and I am pretty happy with the loadout of the tool holders. We bought a Hwacheon a couple of years ago (Doosan had 0 availability) and I was surprised how skimpy they were on their BMT tool blocks. We ended up spending probably another $20k just to get the turret able to hold a full set of tools and add more driven tools.

 

[Mtndew]

1045 isn't a tool steel.
But any big name machine would handle that size part easily.
Okuma, Mori, Mazak, Doosan,Hyundai,Samsung etc...

 

[Ox]

Can't go wrong with the DN/Doosan, as long as the support is good in your area. We have fleet of Lynxs (Lynxi?) and a couple of Pumas of varying models (one sub, one with live tooling and no sub etc). After having used different brands of live tool heads, I'm not sold on the Eppinger live tool heads they include with the machine. We are actually installing a new Lynx 2100LY this week and I am pretty happy with the loadout of the tool holders. We bought a Hwacheon a couple of years ago (Doosan had 0 availability) and I was surprised how skimpy they were on their BMT tool blocks. We ended up spending probably another $20k just to get the turret able to hold a full set of tools and add more driven tools.

Could you explain your $20K investment?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[bigjon61]

Could you explain your $20K investment?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Okay $20k may be a stretch but 3 more live tool holders at $2k a pop and 4 BMT holders at roughly $800 a whack was kind of a bummer to get the machine up to the same speed as our Lynx's stock tooling. After paying installation on a bar feeder we already had it was $20k+.

It has definitely been a good machine though. A couple small details are annoying though. 3"+ spindle bore with the world's smallest sub-mounted parts catcher and the conveyor motor has the horsepower of a hand mixer.

 

[Ox]

Okay $20k may be a stretch but 3 more live tool holders at $2k a pop and 4 BMT holders at roughly $800 a whack was kind of a bummer to get the machine up to the same speed as our Lynx's stock tooling. After paying installation on a bar feeder we already had it was $20k+.

It has definitely been a good machine though. A couple small details are annoying though. 3"+ spindle bore with the world's smallest sub-mounted parts catcher and the conveyor motor has the horsepower of a hand mixer.

OK, well I understand costs with more live toys.
I guess this is the part I was wondering about:

We ended up spending probably another $20k just to get the turret able to hold a full set of tools and add more driven tools.

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[bigjon61]

OK, well I understand costs with more live toys.
I guess this is the part I was wondering about:




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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

It has been a couple of years since we tooled it up, but if memory serves it came with 1 double OD static block (main/sub), 1 double ID static block(main/sub), U-Drill block, and extended parting tool block. 1 axial live tool head, and 1 radial live tool head. I couldn't even drill and tap a cross hole when it got here. We got the machine at a great price, but after adding the additional tooling it was probably right at the same price for a similar Doosan.

 

[Ox]

OK, not that there was a problem really, other than you needed to tool it up.

Got it...


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[SRT Mike]

First answer - Mori NLX

Second answer - get a test cut done. I was under the impression that there would me minor differences between live tooling lathes, but I was wrong. My Okuma cut great. My buddy's Mori cuts even better. The Hwacheon I do some programming for cuts like garbage. It's chattery, weak, not rigid at all. Ok for things like holes and flats and stuff, but get into anything remotely resembling real milling and it absolutely chokes. Not even close to the same ballpark as the Mori.

 

[Orange Vise]

The size of the BMT holders makes a big difference in the milling capability. Whichever machine you choose, get something with BMT65 or similar.

 

[thunderskunk]

1045 isn't a tool steel.

Was wonderin if someone would catch that, haha. That should say 1045/ A6 and S7 tool steel, which is to say the current process uses 1045 and the new process will be with A6 or S7.

 

[Mtndew]

A6 or S7

I haven't cut A6 in years, but we do a lot of A2, and very little S7.
It should be easier to get a nice finish on those compared to 1045. Of course this is assuming you're using a depth of cut/speed/and feedrate that will let you get a smooth finish.