boring head question

[Black Forest]

I have a D'Andrea brand boring and facing head. My question is regarding facing with a boring head.

Why or when would one use the automatic advancing boring bar for facing?

I would think it would be much easier to move the table instead of the table staying fixed and the boring bar advancing.

I actually don't see why one would use the boring head to face instead of a face mill.

When I bought my mill it came with quite a bit of tooling. The boring head was with the mill. Yesterday I called the factory in Italy to see if I could get any manual for the mill. The man asked for the serial number. He replied that the boring head was quite old and they don't have any spare parts for it. I told him it was not broken I just wanted to know all the details of the boring head. Then I told him it was not my fault they built such quality tools and they last so long! He got a big laugh out of that. He emailed me a .pdf file of the manual. I am quite impressed with all this thing can do. Rapid return of the bar, two speed advance. automatic stop at a designated distance. For someone who knows nothing really about machining I was quite impressed with capabilities.

[John Stevenson]

Doing recesses at bottom of bores.
Circlip grooves

Anything that requires a flat concentric pocket, moving the table won't give concentric moves.

[SDL]

I have a D'Andrea brand boring and facing head. My question is regarding facing with a boring head.

Why or when would one use the automatic advancing boring bar for facing?

I would think it would be much easier to move the table instead of the table staying fixed and the boring bar advancing.

I actually don't see why one would use the boring head to face instead of a face mill.

.

Saves having face mills in all sizes to produce circular recesses (pockets). Easy with a CNC but not on a manual

Steve Larner

[Arthur.Marks]

You're thinking of facing in the wrong way, mostly, for these heads. Think concentric rather than linear

[lakeside53]

They excel at spot-facing. I had some shaft bosses that were plug welded to a plate - the welded zones needed circular facing about 3 inches in diameter. Sure, I could have done it in a lathe if I had a day to set it up, and a larger lathe.




Ignore the surface finsh - roughing with a tough insert.

[Richard Wilson]

I had to machine the end of an engine bed casting. It involved boring the casting, boring a concentric rebate at the end of the main bore, facing the end of the casting, and finally machining the O/D of the flange concentric with the bore. I suppose I could have left facing the end of the casting till last, and then changed tooling to a face mill, but why, when thats what boring and facing heads are made for?

Richard

[huntinguy]

I have a D'Andrea brand boring and facing head. My question is regarding facing with a boring head.

Why or when would one use the automatic advancing boring bar for facing?

I would think it would be much easier to move the table instead of the table staying fixed and the boring bar advancing.

I actually don't see why one would use the boring head to face instead of a face mill.

I am confused.... You do not mean to use the boring/facing head like a fly cutter do you? If so, they are not designed for that. They are for boring holes and counter bores. The facing head feeds out for cutting recesses, spot-faces and or groves in bores. Not facing the surface of a part like a fly cutter. You do not move the table when you are using one. In fact I usually lock the table in place to keep it from moving and spoiling my work.

I apologize if I misunderstood what you wrote. But that is what it sounded like you were saying to me.