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razmosis13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
August 10, 2026
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Machining a helical sweep into a cylinder

  • August 10, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 58 views

I have a part with a helical sweep that I need to machine.  I would like it to place the tool in such a way as to follow a continuing loop from the outside edge until it reaches the bottom of the groove.  This is a R.325 with 30 degree lead ins and I will be using a 1/2” ball.  My initial thought was cutline, but since there really is no 2nd cutline, it doesn’t work.  The auto cutline doesn’t work either.

 

Attached is a photo.  You can see where one end of the helix starts, the other end looks the same, but is 180 degrees apart from the start.  I’d really like to tackle this with a continuous 4 axis motion instead of what would be a simplier approach in using straight surface milling.

 

I’d appreciate any ideas.

 

Thank you!

Best answer by razmosis

I got this figured out.  I extruded a few mill surface cylinders through the part, copied the groove as a mill surface and intersected them.  The resulting intersects were used as cutlines in cutline milling and it does exactly what I was looking for.

1 reply

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razmosis13-AquamarineAuthorAnswer
13-Aquamarine
August 11, 2026

I got this figured out.  I extruded a few mill surface cylinders through the part, copied the groove as a mill surface and intersected them.  The resulting intersects were used as cutlines in cutline milling and it does exactly what I was looking for.

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