Titanium Capacity Where You Wouldn’t Expect It

Now that the Boeing 787 has had its first flight, the demand for titanium machining seems set to increase. The plane is 15 percent titanium by weight. It has been said that there may not be enough titanium machining capacity to meet the combined needs of this and other high-titanium planes being introduced to the market.

But could much of the needed titanium machining capacity already be lurking in VMCs that are common to many shops? All it would take are tools and techniques that are able to unlock the machines’ potential productivity in the hard metal. 

This video is interesting for that very reason. It shows how toolpath algorithms and a cutting tool design permit a high metal removal rate in titanium, using a VMC that is neither high speed nor heavy duty.