1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a milling cutter and, more particularly, to a milling cutter, which is capable of performing rough or primary machining and precision machining at the same time.
2. Description of Related Art
In milling, a plurality of burrs may be generated by a milling cutter. To obtain a surface with high quality on a workpiece, the workpiece may require another machining process and another cutter for removing the burrs. During the two machining processes in milling, the first and second milling cutters must be exchanged, and a position of the second milling cutter used must be adjusted to find a proper starting point or work point. Thus, milling is performed by alternating between using the different (first and second) milling cutters, and adjusting the positions of the milling cutters, which takes or consumes more time, thereby decreasing the overall working efficiency and the working precision.
Therefore, there is room for improvement within the art.
The elements in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale, the emphasis instead placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Moreover, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the several views.
In the illustrated embodiment, the cutter body 10 is substantially cylindrical, and defines a central axis α. In machining, the cutter body 10 rotates about the central axis α. The cutter body 10 includes a first end 12 and a second end 14 formed at an end of the first end 12. The cutting portion 50 is formed at the first end 12 of the cutter body 10, and the cutter handle 30 is formed at the second end 14 of the cutter body 10.
The cutter handle 30 can have a straight shank or a tapered shank. The cutter handle 30 is used for attaching the cutter 100 to a main shaft (not shown) of a computer numerical control machine (not shown).
The cutting portion 50 includes a first cutting portion 60 and a second cutting portion 70 connected to the first cutting portion 60. The first cutting portion 60, the second cutting portion 70, and the cutter body 10 are aligned along the central axis α. The first cutting portion 60 is adjacent to the second cutting portion 70 along the central axis α. The first cutting portion 60 extends toward the cutter handle 30 in a helix shape along the central axis α of the cutter body 10. The second cutting portion 70 extends toward the cutter handle 30 along the central axis α of the cutter body 10 in a helix shape. In the illustrated embodiment, a helical direction of the first cutting portion 60 and a helical direction of the second cutting portion 70 are opposite of each other. A distance between the first cutting portion 60 and the cutter body 10 is greater than a distance between the second cutting portion 70 and the cutter body 10. A length of the first cutting portion 60 along the central axis α is equal to or slightly smaller than a length of the second cutting portion 70 along the central axis α. The first cutting portion 60 is used for the rough or primary machining of a workpiece (not shown), and the second cutting portion 70 removes burrs being created on the portion of the workpiece which has been cut during the primary milling performed by the first cutting portion 60.
Referring to
The second cutting portion 70 includes a first cutting edge 71, a second cutting edge 73, a third cutting edge 75, and a fourth cutting edge 77. The four cutting edges 71, 73, 75, 77 helically extend from the first end 12 of the cutter body 10 along the central axis α. The first cutting edge 71 is adjacent to the second cutting edge 73. A first cutting end edge 711 is formed between the first cutting edge 71 and the second cutting edge 73, and is adjacent to one first helical groove 66. The third cutting edge 75 is located adjacent to the fourth cutting edge 77. A second cutting end edge 713 located opposite to the first cutting end edge 711 is formed between the third cutting edge 71 and the fourth cutting edge 77, and is adjacent to another first helical groove 66. In the machining process, the first cutting end edge 711 and the second cutting end edge 713 are capable of removing the burrs created by the two lead cutting edges 61 and the two side cutting edges 65 of the first cutting portion 60, along a cutting direction thereof.
During machining, the cutter 100 rotates along the central axis α. Because the direction of twist of the second cutting portion 70 is opposite to the direction of twist of the first cutting portion 60, and the cutting direction which is applied to the second cutting portion 70 is the reverse cutting direction when burrs were generated, and the burrs created are removed by the second cutting portion 70. The processes of having to alternating cutter installation for usage or the re-positioning the workpiece upon installation of a new cutter are simply not needed, such that labour hours can be greatly decreased, and the working efficiency is increased. Further, any error introduced by having to re-position the second cutter can be avoided, and the working precision for milling can be greatly increased.
The quantities of the lead cutting edges 61 and of the side cutting edges 65, respectively, of the first cutting portion 60 can be changed according to a size or the manufacturing difficulty of the cutter 100, for example, the total number of the lead cutting edges 61 or the side cutting edges 65 can be two, or four, or eight. The lead cutting edges 61 and the side cutting edges 65 can be arranged non-uniformly in the end surface of the first cutting portion 60 along the circumferential direction thereof. Shapes of the lead cutting edge 61 and the side cutting edge 65 can be changed according to a surface shape of the workpiece to be machined.
It is believed that the present embodiments and their advantages will be understood from the foregoing description, and it will be apparent that various changes may be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure or sacrificing all of its material advantages.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201210095698.0 | Apr 2012 | CN | national |