Re: abrasive wood? was: Lead screws for ever...(plastic)

Wood dust abrasive?

Ummmm.

I'm not going to leap in here and put my foot in mouth, I don't have a
problem with some plastics being abrasive, but I would have thought that
wood dust would be fairly mild compared to harder materials... Although I
suppose normally metal swarf is too big to get into the bearings, whereas
the dust I'll be making out of balsa is very fine. I had a play with the
dremmel and a .8mm endmill and the dust was talc like. Talc now, there's an
abrasive....

I might put this one in the "I'll think about it" basket for the mo...

Cheers, Chris.

* Design engineer, Assembly worker, Cleaner.
* Ohmark Electronics. PO Box 5302, Christchurch, New Zealand.
* http://www.ohmark.co.nz

----- Original Message -----
From: Anne Ogborn <anniepoo@...>
To: <CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@egroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2000 8:45 PM
Subject: Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Re: re:Re: Lead screws for
ever...(plastic)


> > > Something not often mentioned in the choice of ballscrews vs. ??? is
> > > that ballscrews are EXTREMELY intolerant of dust/dirt/swarf/etc.!
> >
> > I've already got the bellows sorted out... at the end of the day this
> > machine is going to cut balsa and plastic for models, probably not a big
> > deal.. I also intend to have a "chip vac" or at least a buggered old
vacuum
> > cleaner...
>
> Uh, actually, wood is viciously abrasive. Plastic only slightly less so.
> Either is far worse as swarf than metal.
>
> If you're cutting these materials the chip vac is a great idea. These
> nonconductive materials (esp. the plastics) cling by static electricity
> to everything around them 8cP
> They're a real mess.
>
> Annie
>