Machining advice

[Shep]

Bit of a long shot this but here goes anyway.

A customer of mine has asked me to engrave some details on a block of teflon, has anybody any experience in machining Teflon, its white, slippery and this component is a one off (at the moment) worth a fair bit

Gut feeling tels me to increase the cutter (.15mm dia) clearance a bit, slow cutter revs/feed down, and use a fluid (water poss) to cool the cutter/help swarf to release. perhaps air cooling would be better . But any ideas welcome.

Here's hopefully

Shep

 

[Vern]

Good luck to you,I tried to machine some a few years back.Tried everything as a cutting solution,water,suds,WD40,parrafin and dry,but nothing seemed to work nicely. I asked a mate who works for the ministry,and he said they had a special fluid for working only with PTFE(they also used it for cleaning it before glueing it together )but didn't know anything about what it was made of.

I think you'll end up with trial and error,but if you only have one piece to work on,that could be a very short excersice.

Keep me informed,I'd be interested to know how you get on

 

[Gas'd Off]

I used to weld glass reinforced teflon fabric but never machined it. Given it's properties I would suggest using VERY sharp tooling and treat as a soft metal. Slowly slowly