How To Cut Uneven Outer Cylindrical Surface

How to cut uneven outer cylindrical surface workpiece on CNC Turning Machine? In fact, machining uneven outer cylindrical surface workpiece or irregular outer cylindrical surface workpiece on CNC turning machine center or CNC lathe machine requires a fundamental understanding of the relationships between workpiece surface integrity, tool life, type of workpiece material, size of workpiece, type of tool tip and machining parameters setting such as depth of cut, spindle speed and cutting tool feed rate and how severe the workpiece outer surface condition. Of course, the tool tip material also need to be considered but I'm not going to emphasize it here because I'm using the standard tool tip, High Speed Steel (HSS) tool tip with nose radius range from 0.4 mm to 0.8 mm to perform the tuning and facing operations. In some cases, I will use the same tool tip for turning and facing operations.



If the machining operation involve time consuming especially when performing mass production then you need to have more powerful tool tip such as carbide tool tip. In CNC turning machine center, single point cutting tool or tool tip also known as an insert because we need to insert the tool tip onto the forged tool holder and attach the tool holder on the turret system or Auto Tool Changer (ATC) before we can use it in the machining operation.



Machining the uneven outer cylindrical surface workpiece on CNC lathe machine, a rough cut need to perform. When performing rough cut on the uneven outer cylindrical surface or irregular outer cylindrical surface workpiece, it is very crucial to have a correct machining parameters setting. Incorrect machining parameters setting especially the spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut will led to tool tip blunt very fast, crack or breakdown.





Here are my machining parameters setting when performing a turning rough cut on irregular outer cylindrical surface or uneven outer cylindrical surface workpiece. I am using CNC turning machine center with Centroid CNC Controller.

Tool = High Speed Steel (HSS) tool tip
Workpiece Material = Mild Steel SS41
Workpiece Diameter = 143 mm
Workpiece Length = 160 mm
Feed Rate = 5 F/M (Feed per Minute)
Spindle Speed = 200 RPM (Rotation per Minute)
Depth of Cut = 1 mm (total unused material remove from workpiece is 2 mm out of total diameter in 1 cycle of turning operation)

Finish cut parameters setting for turning operation

Feed Rate = 70 F/M
Spindle Speed = 800 RPM
Depth of Cut = 0.2 mm (total unused material remove from workpiece is 0.4 mm out of total diameter in 1 cycle of turning operation)





Video clip showing the turning process to cut and machining the uneven or irregular outer cylindrical surface workpiece on CNC Turning Machine Center.