CNC Milling Way Of Forming Shapes

Source:shengfe Date:2018-06-23 11:43

CNC Milling Way Of Forming Shapes
 
Although the power of CAM and CNC software allows many shapes to be gener- ated using standard cutting tools, there are occasions when it is simpler to create a shape using a form cutter. A shape is generated when it is created by the move- ment of tool and workpiece, so the resulting shape need not be anything like the shape of the tool. An example of this might be an end mill that is cylindrical in
shape yet, with appropriate movements around a workplace, can generate a straight edge on a square workpiece. A shape is formed when the shape of the tool creates the shape of a feature in the workpiece (or, usually, the inverse of the shape of the tool). An example might be a twist drill that has a cylindrical shape and produces a cylindrical hole.
CNC Milling
 Form cutters behave like woodworking cutters for shapers or
routers and reproduce the inverse of the shape of their cutting edge in the work- piece, although there is a more restricted choice of off-the-shelf shaped cutters for metal. Ball-nosed end mills machine a groove with a semicircular bottom (Fig. 4-17); corner-rounding cutters remove a quarter-circle section from the edge of a workpiece to round the edge between two faces (Fig. 4-18); concave cutters leave a protruding ridge on the work (Fig. 4-19); and convex cutters machine a semicir- cular groove into the work (Fig. 4-20). Although these are useful types of cutter, one of the benefits of CNC milling is that a lot of shapes that would once have been formed using a shaped form cutter can be produced by generating the shape using a conventional end mill or ball-nosed end mill.