Ballparking Tool Life and Cost

[matttay]

Hi, assume you had the time and patience to dial in a setup that needed to optimally remove 3-5 in3/minute of material in 316 stainless.

How long would you expect a cutter to last before it needed replacing? How much would you expect that cutter to cost?

Would those figures change appreciably for 303 or 304 SS?

An answer such as "We get about X hours of milling time in 316 on a Y-brand 0.5" end mill, and those are about Z each" would be extremely helpful.

Thanks very much!

[PixMan]

There will be a big difference in tool life of an end mill between milling 303 and 304 stainless, probably 2 times the life.

There is such a wide variety of tooling and the operations you do with it out there that it's just about impossible to predict. You will need to test.

You might be able to get a tooling vendor to predict. What is the type of milling operation (face, end, side), the depth of cut, width of cut, diameter of tool, etc?