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Tooling for horizontal mill tube notcher

Alucon

Plastic
Joined
Apr 24, 2023
Sure is nice to be able to ask the advise of professionals.
Aluminum railing fabricator here. Years ago I purchase a Mittler Bros horizontal tube notching mill for a pipe railing job. It works great except the cuts need to be de-burred before welding. I currently need to purchase a 2" cutter and was wondering which tool would make a cleaner cut.
Material is 2" O.D. x 1/8" wall tube 6061-T5
 

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Would look at a 2” annular myself though everything notching seems holesaw, those progressor ones work good but I suppose any starret will do, not sure how your going to notch without deburring myself, notching an unsupported tube is a fairly janky process, .
 
Thanks for your advise. I used a hole saw and a drill press for years, but the mill works really well. The rough cutter makes for a horrendous burr though. Thanks again.
 
There isn't going to be a very simple solution to this, the corn-cob style roughing cutters that the machine typically uses are really geared toward steel. The design of the cutting surface grind is attributed to steel. When it comes to aluminum there are soo many factors that will affect the burr, on tube especially. I dealt with this problem years ago when the Iron works I worked at had a railing job come across that required Al tube. It came down to having to get a very specific alloy in a strict temper to be able to notch it and bend it without issues.

This may be a lot of trial and error on your part to find a cutter that works, which sucks considering how expensive those damn cutters are. Those cutters are not proprietary to the machine, however, those machines are typically the only machines that use the roughing cutters in a 1" or 1-1/4" shank diameter in 6" length of cut. I would suggest reaching out to the cutting tool companies to see if they have any suggestions. You can try changing the pitch of the cutting edge, the number of cutting edges, the grind of the tool etc. A brand new super sharp cutter should reduce the burr also, those roughers are great at just mauling their way through but not so much for delicate work, the cutter you move to may wind up being an uninterrupted style of tooth.

Have you talked to Mittler about it to see if they have any suggestions? One suggestion, and I know it sounds off kilter here, clean the tube for welding before you notch it. Notch it, leave the burr on there and just weld over it. As long as you use a solvent of some kind in between the cutting procedure and welding to remove any oils or cutting fluids from notching the burr would just get consumed in the weld puddle.

One last option, worst case scenario, if the quantity of work is there you can always outsource the notching to have the cope/notch laser cut. Best of luck with this one.
 
Would look at a 2” annular myself though everything notching seems holesaw, those progressor ones work good but I suppose any starret will do, not sure how your going to notch without deburring myself, notching an unsupported tube is a fairly janky process, .
An annular cutter doesn't apply to this type of machine, annular cutters feed in axially, these machines are designed to feed in perpendicular to the centerline of the tool. Starret makes great precision measuring stuff, their cutting tools have far to go. Jancy, Hougen, fein are the best bet in my opinion when it comes to annular.
 
There isn't going to be a very simple solution to this, the corn-cob style roughing cutters that the machine typically uses are really geared toward steel. The design of the cutting surface grind is attributed to steel. When it comes to aluminum there are soo many factors that will affect the burr, on tube especially. I dealt with this problem years ago when the Iron works I worked at had a railing job come across that required Al tube. It came down to having to get a very specific alloy in a strict temper to be able to notch it and bend it without issues.

This may be a lot of trial and error on your part to find a cutter that works, which sucks considering how expensive those damn cutters are. Those cutters are not proprietary to the machine, however, those machines are typically the only machines that use the roughing cutters in a 1" or 1-1/4" shank diameter in 6" length of cut. I would suggest reaching out to the cutting tool companies to see if they have any suggestions. You can try changing the pitch of the cutting edge, the number of cutting edges, the grind of the tool etc. A brand new super sharp cutter should reduce the burr also, those roughers are great at just mauling their way through but not so much for delicate work, the cutter you move to may wind up being an uninterrupted style of tooth.

Have you talked to Mittler about it to see if they have any suggestions? One suggestion, and I know it sounds off kilter here, clean the tube for welding before you notch it. Notch it, leave the burr on there and just weld over it. As long as you use a solvent of some kind in between the cutting procedure and welding to remove any oils or cutting fluids from notching the burr would just get consumed in the weld puddle.

One last option, worst case scenario, if the quantity of work is there you can always outsource the notching to have the cope/notch laser cut. Best of luck with this one.
Thanks for your reply. Will likely stick with the roughing cutter and continue the de-burring. Not really a big deal, but was hoping to eliminate the step. Have tried welding over the burr, but it makes the weld inconsistent to the point where it interferes with the welder's rhythm. Our tig guy is good, but gets frustrated if his parts aren't clean. Luckily we don't have to bend any of the 2" tube, but we are bending 1-1/2" x 1/8" wall round tube on a 3" center line radius for hand rails on this job. Using 6061 -T4 and plugging the tube where we need to make 90° bends. Works real well and we fabricated a couple of thousand feet in 2021 for some goat path stairs in St. Thomas. Thanks again for your suggestions. I will reach out to Mittler before I purchase the new cutter.
 
Laser and plasma take more clean up than the copper. A used flap disk and one or two licks and you are done. Why tig when you can mig it?

Push the material into cutter faster than you think it should go. The mittler vice gibs might be loose if the burr is really bad. Let the part dwell at finished depth for one or two revolutions of cutter.
 
Thanks for your reply. Yeah, the clean up is really no big deal and we do use the mig depending on the customer. This is a government job in St, Croix that calls for the welds to be ground smooth. I told them that I wouldn't take the work if we had to grind the welds, but we would be willing to tig for a smoother weld. They bought into that. The vise is good and the burr not so bad. Will try a faster feed and and end cut clean up. Currently using a 2" barrel sander on the drill press for de-burring. 60 grit knocks the burr off nicely. Thanks again for your impute.
 








 
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