How to Make Apple’s Mac Pro Holes

Re:How to Make Apple’s Mac Pro Holes by oflannabhra on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @06:33PM (#20279753)

My understanding is that using a ball end mill to "drill out" a hemisphere while perpendicular to your surface will create very high forces that are bad for the tool. I'd imagine you could offset the tool axis and then achieve the same effect, but using a smaller tool might end up being easier.

Please note that I am far from even a beginner machinist.

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Re:How to Make Apple’s Mac Pro Holes by neetdeth on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @07:48PM (#20280474)

Right, that's the idea I was trying to express. Don't expect anything good to happen if you try to plunge a ball end mill straight down into the material.

The thought was only that a large-radius ball would be able to approximate the sphere to within tolerance with larger stepover than a smaller tool. After bulk material removal with a more suitable cylindrical tool of course.

With a little bit of googling I discovered a different class of end mill called a circle segment tool, which could potentially make short work of the problem in a 5-axis machine:

https://www.moldmakingtechnology.com/videos/circle-segment-t...

Would love to see how Apple does it, but it's never happening.

I'm not really a machinist either, but let's not allow that to stop us from incorrecting each other on HN!

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Re:How to Make Apple’s Mac Pro Holes by 6nf on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @09:07PM (#20280971)

The stock material is aluminium alloy, it’s not that hard on tooling.

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