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Accidentally milled through a $400 piece of titanium this morning

Was running a job on the Haas VF-2 at work, setting up a new part for an aerospace client. Forgot to double check the Z offset after a tool change and plunged right through the top surface. Scrapped a $400 block of 6AL-4V in about half a second. Anyone else have that sick feeling when you hear the cutter hit where it shouldnt?
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2 Comments
evan_jenkins
That sick feeling when you hear the cutter hit where it shouldnt"... yeah, that sound sticks with you all day for sure. I read somewhere that titanium can workharden if you look at it wrong, which makes this even worse because you're not just out the material, you might have contaminated the coolant or the machine. And $400 for a block of 6AL-4V... that stings. I've heard of guys running test cuts on cheaper aluminum first just to double check their offsets on expensive jobs.
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benreed
benreed26d ago
Yeah I've done similar and that sound just sticks with you all day...
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