The lip or top rake must, in case the bar should tremble during the finishing cut, be ground off, leaving the face level; and if, from the bar being too slight for its duty, it should still either chatter or jar, it will pay best to reduce the revolutions per minute of the bar, keeping the feed as coarse as possible, which will give the best results in a given time. In cases where, from the excessive length and smallness of the bar, it is difficult to prevent it from springing, the cutters must be made as in [Fig. 1139], having no lip, and but a small amount of cutting surface; and the corner a should be bevelled off as shown. Under these conditions, the tool is the least likely to chatter or spring into the cut.
The shape of the cutting corner of a cutter depends entirely upon the position of its clearance or rake. If the edge forming the diameter has no clearance upon it, the cutting being performed by the end edges, the cutter may be left with a square, slightly rounded, or bevelled corner; but if the cutter have clearance on its outside or diametrical edge, as shown on the cutters in [Fig. 1137], the cutting corner should be bevelled or rounded off, otherwise it will jar in taking a roughing cut, and chatter in taking a moderate cut. The principle is that bevelling off the front edge of the cutter, as shown in [Fig. 1139], tends greatly to counteract a disposition to either jarring or chattering, especially as applied to brass work.
The only other precaution which can be taken to prevent, in exceptional cases, the spring of a boring bar is to provide a bearing at each end of the work, as, for instance, by bolting to the end of the work four iron plates, the ends being hollowed to fit the bar, and being so adjusted as to barely touch it; so that, while the bar will not be sprung by the plates, yet, if it tends to spring out of true, it will be prevented from doing so by contact with the hollow ends of the plates, which latter should have a wide bearing, and be kept well lubricated.
It sometimes happens that, from play in the journals of the machine, or from other causes, a boring bar will jar or chatter at the commencement of a bore, and will gradually cease to do so as the cut proceeds and the cutter gets a broader bearing upon the work. Especially is this liable to occur in using cutters having no clearance on the diametrical edge; because, so soon as such a cutter has entered the bore for a short distance, the diametrical edge (fitting closely to the bore) acts as a guide to steady the cutter. If, however, the cutter has such clearance, the only perceptible reason is that the chattering ceases as soon as the cutting edge of the tool or cutter has lost its fibrous edges. The natural remedy for this would appear to be to apply the oil-stone; this, however, will either have no effect or make matters worse. It is, indeed, a far better plan to take the tool (after grinding) and rub the cutting edge into a piece of soft wood, and to apply oil to the tool during its first two or three cutting revolutions. The application of oil will often remedy a slight existing chattering of a boring bar, but it is an expedient to be avoided, if possible, since the diameter or bore cut with oil will vary from that cut dry, the latter being a trifle the larger.
The considerations, therefore, which determine the shape of a cutter to be employed are as follows: Cutters for use on a certain and unvarying size of bore should have no clearance on the diametrical edges, the cutting being performed by the end edge only. Cutters intended to be adjusted to suit bores of varying diameter should have clearance on the end and on the diametrical edges. For use on brass work the cutting corner should be rounded off, and there should be no lip given to the cutting edge. For wrought iron the cutter should be lipped, and oil or soapy water should be supplied to it during the operation. A slight lip should be given to cutters for use on cast iron, unless, from slightness in the bar or other cause, there is a tendency to jarring, in which case no lip or front rake should be given.
Fig. 1140.
“In boring work chucked and revolved in the lathe, such, for instance, as axle boxes for locomotives, the bar shown in [Fig. 1140] is an excellent tool. a represents a cutter head, which slides along, at a close working fit, upon the bar d d, and is provided with the cutters b, b, b, which are fastened into slots provided in the head a by the keys shown. The bar d d has a thread cut upon part of its length, the remainder being plain, to fit the sliding head. One end is squared to receive a wrench, which resting against the bed of the lathe, prevents the bar from revolving upon the lathe centres f, f, by which the bar is held in the lathe. g, g, g are plain washers, provided to make up the distance between the thread and plain part of the bar in cases where the sliding head a requires considerable lateral movement, there being more or less washers employed according to the distance along which the sliding head is required to move. The edges of these washers are chamfered off to prevent them from burring easily. To feed the cutters, the nut h is screwed up with a wrench.
“The cutter head a is provided in its bore with two feathers, which slide in grooves provided in the bar d d, thus preventing the head from revolving upon the bar. It is obvious that this bar will, in consequence of its rigidity, take out a much heavier cut than would be possible with any boring tool, and furthermore that, there being four cutters, they can be fed up four times as fast as would be possible with a single tool or cutter. Care must, however, be exercised to so set the cutters that they will all project true radially, so that the depth of cut taken by each will be equal, or practically so; otherwise the feeding cannot progress any faster than if one cutter only were employed.”[17]