can anyone recommend a good roughing end mill for aluminum? i have been looking at the Minicut roughing/finishing end mills that Rutland sells. it says they're specifically for aluminum. has anyone used one of these before? are they worth the money?

thanks,
ben

Originally posted by Ben
can anyone recommend a good roughing end mill for aluminum? i have been looking at the Minicut roughing/finishing end mills that Rutland sells. it says they're specifically for aluminum. has anyone used one of these before? are they worth the money?

thanks,
ben

Hi, Ben.

Like anything else, it will depend on a number of factors...

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Type of Alum?
Machine stability/speed/feed
fixture stability
type of roughing, contour, pocket, surf etc
depth you need
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'Rekd teh more data please

hi rekd. i'm a novice, and i don't quite know how to answer your questions. i think i'll be working mostly with 6061 Al. i have a tiny sherline 5400 mill, which i use to make parts for my RC helicopters. i just need a good general purpose roughing end mill to make my work go a little faster.

Ben--

I use the International Minicut on alot of the aluminum jobs we run. I use 1/2", 5/8" and 1" diameters. The ones with the polished flutes cost a bit more but is worth it. They evacuate the chips a bit better and don't load up. I'm not sure how much you can pull with your Sherline but these things will really hog out the material. For instance, I run the 1/2" cutter at 7640rpm and 85 inches per minute. Full width of cutter thru 3/4" aluminum and it just eats it up.

One cutter that I like better is the SGS Ski-Carb. They are a little more expensive but I have run them at 10,000 rpms at 200 inchs and it cuts like butter. Regrinds are no good unless you let SGS do it because of their special geometry.

thanks, e-stop. i think i'll try one of the ones with the polished flutes.

Sounds like many of the standard mills will work. You might consider the minicuts if the price is good. Dont' spend top dollar for performance EM's if your machine/applications don't warrent it. (For hobby stuff, the standard tooling will work just fine)

'Rekd teh All this talk about homemade routers and mills makes me wanna makes me one. :D

Rekd,

I been thinkin teh same thing.

Have you checked out some of the pics in the home made router threads ?

looks like fun.