New to RepRap

[Kent Flowers]

First off Hi everyone....now that thats out of the way. i am very
interested in building a reprap. I have a large amount of machining
work in various materials, however I have yet to really touch
plastics. I would love to know if you all have a group meetup or if
someone would like to invite me over to see there machine working. I
am hoping to start building my reprap before the end of the month.
Would love to hear any advice and info thats worth sharing.

[Larry]

Kent,

First off, welcome to the group.

Re machining plastics:
IMHO, when machining plastics, for the best surface finish, reduce the
rake of the cutter, if you can, if not, be careful to keep the feed
rate slow. With a rake angle set for metals, the tool tends to dig
way in very quickly -- if you let it. (I once pulled a workpiece out
of a milling vice, by using a drill bit whose rake was correct for
metal. NOT FUN.) You can obviously take bigger cuts in plastic
than metal, though you have to adjust the surface speed and/or use
some sort of coolant, or the plastic melts instead of cuts with a
clean chip. I suggest taking some practice cuts on inexpensive
plastics (ABS, LDPE, Plex, especially from the scrap bin) before
making mistakes in more expensive plastics like Teflon, polycarbonate
-- or especially PEEK. ($$$) I miss my mill and lathes ;-(

Larry