Hey all,
I have read about cutting stainless steel in some of the forum posts. I want to carve a part that has a thickness of somewhere in the neighborhood of .024 inches (24 gauge). I was wondering if these settings are doable or am I way off on the feed rates, step-down, etc. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
About my X-carve v1
1000mm
Dewalt 611
Steel brackets along the Y-axis for reinforcement
Bolts inserted along the X-axis for reinforcement
Here is my Fusion setup sheet:
I am mostly interest in the cutout, but if you see anything in the drilling, that would be helpful as well.
Thanks,
Brian
Yeah. I suspected this would be the case. I had a Hypertherm plasma cutter for a while but used it so infrequently, I sold it. I hoped someday to make a CNC for it, but, like a lot of other things in my playbook, that never happened 
Brian
1 Like
Stainless steel comes on many grades and you did not say what type of stainless you are working with. With that said you have a problem anyway. I am going to assume you know nothing about SFM or CLpT (surface feet per minute and Chip load per tooth.) without calculating anything I can tell you that there is no way to cut stainless at 30ipm and the lowest speed on the DeWalt is way too fast.
Once you identify the type of material you can look up the SFM for that material in the machinists handbook and from there you can calculate the proper rpm. From there you can calculate the chip load per tooth to calculate the feed rate. Other considerations are the rigidity and horse power of the machine itself. Then there is the matter of coolant. in short, it will be hard to do at best.
