Face Mills? Which one to choose for a good finish on aluminum?

[peter.blais]

Hi, I'm looking for a face mill somewhere between 2.5" and 3" diameter that'll give me the absolute best possible finish on aluminum. Cost and speed etc are secondary concerns, I'm mainly using this to just take a skim off the top of extruded stock and get rid of the giant calking gun marks.

I looked at valenite but honestly I can't find those pentagon style inserts for the life of me. I found a few on mcmaster but they didn't have the finishing ones only the mediums.

I know a few guys said hertel on here for alu, any suggestions on a specific model and / or insert that works well?

Heres a Hertel one I was looking at:

http://www.jlindustrial.com/catalog/...tosearchpage=Y

Kennametal seems to make about 300 different ones and I can't find much for info online telling me what is for what... Just different angles and such... Thing is I can get kennametal inserts at a decent price all day long... but how many inserts is a 3hp bridgeport cnc really gonna burn up haha.

which brings me to my next q... What geometry should I be looking for to give a decent finish on alu? Heres a few hundred kennametal ones:

http://www.jlindustrial.com/endeca/s...Keyword+Search

Any help? These are kinda spendy new so I'd rather not try a few haha before getting the one that works for me!

[dertsap]

http://www.jlindustrial.com/catalog/...tosearchpage=Y

they should have a 3 or 4 insert style 3" , that insert style is extremely aggressive ,
for facing profiling and outright hogging with a killer finish , they have various sizes of this style ,
i have not used anything better when it comes to aluminum , you won t be disappointed with it , lots of suppliers will give a demo tool to test , just have to ask

i would recommend the 3 or 4 insert style , reason being the tool is carved out well around the insert area ,thus better chip clearance and removal

[peter.blais]

Doh, it told me that your catalog session expired. I'm assuming my links are broken as well then. What was it? Sorry... I don't normally use J&L they just had a decent selection of hertel stuff.

Pete

[tobyaxis]

Try these

http://www.carboloy.com/

http://www.secotools.com/upload/nort...20Brochure.pdf


If you don't like those try these

http://www.iscar.com/ProductLines/Pr...MenuItemID3=21

[solgood]

OSG Disc Cutter. Works great on AL and can run them at high RPM.

[dertsap]

Originally Posted by peter.blais Doh, it told me that your catalog session expired. I'm assuming my links are broken as well then. What was it? Sorry... I don't normally use J&L they just had a decent selection of hertel stuff. Pete

try the link again works fine for me

[peter.blais]

Hmm, I did get the link to J&L working, but tracking the part number over to kennametal leaves me thinking its a 1.5" diameter mill. I need at least 2.5" so I can do the majority of my parts in one pass.

The seco / carbaloy website was pretty useless, they have tons of dimensions but not a single bit of information on which of their products is designed to work on what. Perhaps your supposed to just know that from the specs, but thats why I'm on here I have the same problem with kennametals website.

[tobyaxis]

Originally Posted by peter.blais Hmm, I did get the link to J&L working, but tracking the part number over to kennametal leaves me thinking its a 1.5" diameter mill. I need at least 2.5" so I can do the majority of my parts in one pass. The seco / carbaloy website was pretty useless, they have tons of dimensions but not a single bit of information on which of their products is designed to work on what. Perhaps your supposed to just know that from the specs, but thats why I'm on here I have the same problem with kennametals website.

That is called a sales ploy Did you check out www.mscdirect.com and www.use-enco.com they have sales all the time.

[Burn]

I have a quick question, pertinent but sort of OT:

Can someone direct me to a guide to buying face mills, i.e. what cutting angle and such? I would be primarily looking into facing Delrin and Copper C110.

Oh, and I have heard good things about Lovejoy face mills
http://www.lovejoytool.com/

[solgood]

c110 can be faced with a 15 deg with no prob. Delrin can be faced with the same tool just watch for worping, you might need to take a light finish pass.

[tobyaxis]

Try this site. The Industrial Press is the Publisher of the Machinerys' HandBook, and McGraw Hill

http://www.industrialpress.com/en/Default.aspx

[dertsap]

Originally Posted by peter.blais Hmm, I did get the link to J&L working, but tracking the part number over to kennametal leaves me thinking its a 1.5" diameter mill. I need at least 2.5" so I can do the majority of my parts in one pass. The seco / carbaloy website was pretty useless, they have tons of dimensions but not a single bit of information on which of their products is designed to work on what. Perhaps your supposed to just know that from the specs, but thats why I'm on here I have the same problem with kennametals website.

they will have the size that you need , it just the style that i was trying to show you