Profile milling
Profile milling includes the milling of concave and convex surfaces in two or three dimensions. The process can involve anything from the manufacture of small individual parts to mass production tasks related to large, complex workpieces. Regardless of the size or complexity of the work, careful planning is essential for the efficiency of the process and the quality of the end products.
Profile milling can be divided into at least three different stages: roughing/semi-finishing, intermediate finishing, and final finishing. In some cases, extremely precise fine machining is required, often using high-speed machining.
The roughing and semi-finishing phase involves removing most of the material from the workpiece. At this stage, round insert and corner round milling cutters are typically used. These cutters efficiently remove large amounts of material but leave a rough surface. The goal of this phase is to prepare the workpiece for the following finishing processes as efficiently and economically as possible.
When moving to intermediate finishing and actual finishing, strategies and tools often change. At this stage, ball nose cutters are used to create more precise and smoother surfaces. The purpose of intermediate finishing is to remove the remaining stock, known as residual milling, preparing the workpiece for the next stage, which is finishing.
The finishing stage requires great precision and care, as this stage aims to achieve the best possible geometric accuracy and surface quality. In finishing, only a very thin layer of material is removed from the workpiece surface, so the process must be extremely accurate. It is often recommended to use a 4- or 5-axis machine programmed using advanced CAM software at this stage. This allows for the efficient machining of complex and precise surfaces.
To achieve the best accuracy and productivity, it is advisable to perform roughing and finishing on different machines using tools optimized for each phase. This way, it can be ensured that the most suitable tools and methods are used in each process, making the process more efficient and productive.
Additionally, it is important to consider that in more complex and larger workpieces where the diversity and number of profiles to be milled increase, special attention is also required in design and implementation. In such cases, planning the milling process requires a thorough understanding of the characteristics of the material to be machined, the dynamics of the machining, and the capabilities of the available tools.
