The Sticking Points in Stainless Steel Machining

Stainless steel machining is popular due to its excellent strength-to-weight ratio, highly formability and weldability. However, there’s some tricky problems may occur in its machining process.

Compared to relatively soft metals such as aluminum, stainless steel is obviously hard to work with. As we know, stainless steel has high melting point which makes difficult to use in welding. During the machining process, the material will become harder which makes the machining process more difficult to go on. Meanwhile, stainless steel will generate a lot of heat which increases to faster cutting tool wear.

So how can we machine stainless steel properly?

First of all, you may heat treatment before machining, which changes the hardness of stainless steel and makes it easy to machine; Second of all, using lubrication,to cool of the heat and lubricate the product surface at the same time; Third of all, make sure you're using the suitable cutting tools to obtain smooth part surfaces with close tolerance; The last but not the least, using lower cutting speed to reduce possible heat generation and facilitate chip breaking, then you will get an ideal stainless steel parts.

Related News