The design of Fullerton's 3116 TiMill is based upon over a decade of aerospace testing and development and addresses many of the machining issues that Titanium presents. There has been a ton of research on titanium's properties and that research has led to further refinement of the cutting tool geometry at Fullerton. That's what we've learned about titanium over the past couple of decades. The trick to machining titanium has always been to keep consistent coolant flow to evacuate the chips and maintain a consistent chip load. Ideally, finish to size in the final pass if you can. During uniaxial loading, the initial rate of hardening is higher in compression so if you come back for another pass you need to get under the work hardened layer, that is, leave enough material for a finish pass to get under the layer or your tool life will suffer and your part finishes will decline with it. The final icing on the cake is that titanium is prone to work hardening. Instead of heat being evacuated in the chips or transferred to the base material, heat tends to be transferred to the cutting tool which reduces it's tool life. Next, titanium does not have good thermal conduction properties like aluminum. ![]() You've got to keep the cutter in-the-cut: Insert cutters just aren't as good as solid endmills at doing this. On top that, it's also prone to work hardening and galling super easily. Why difficult? Well, first it has low Young’s modulus meaning that is more elastic than other materails: It's "gummy" which often causes spring back and chatter during machining and can readily generate long stringy chips if you don't have the correct edge prep. This is what is commonly known as 6Al4V or Ti 6-4. It's often alloyed with 6% aluminum and 4% vanadium. Generally, titanium g rades 1 through 4 are considered commercially pure titanium with varying requirements on ultimate tensile strength while Grade 5 is what is most often seen in the machining industry. It's also what makes it considered a "more difficult to machine" material. ![]() As a result of titanium's material properties it's making it become evermore popular in the aerospace, defense, shipbuilding, medical adn dental industries.
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