I saw some YouTube videos with people using this face mill on a small mill like mine (Seig X2D). It seemed like it would do what I wanted, which was a faster way to put a nice finish cut on parts, not to hog off a bunch of material.
The first thing I noticed was that the R8 mandrel didn't fit up into the spindle bore as far as any of my other R8 stuff (drill chuck, collets). It seemed like the key way wasn't cut long enough but I machined it longer without making any difference.
I also noticed that the drawbar would bind at spots on its way to being tight. I can easily thread the drawbar into the mandrel with my fingers if it's not in the spindle, but once inserted there are 3 or 4 places that require me to put a wrench on the drawbar to advance it a half turn so I can continue to screw it in by hand. I figured maybe the threads aren't concentric to the mandrel.
All of this would have been something I could live with but when I tried to take a .005" cut on some mild steel the finish was horrible. It's like the inserts are wiping instead of cutting. Here's a pic where the left half of the piece was done with the face mill and the right side was a quickie pass with a 4 flute Niagra HSS center cutting end mill.
I tried different speeds, from around 400 RPM up to 800 RPM and feeds from really slow to about what I'd use with the end mill.
I also pulled out two of the inserts but the wiping action didn't change. I know these little mills don't have the power to take large DOC, but since that was never my intent, I figured it would at least take cuts of .010 or less. I should note that I also tried it with some 6061 and got the same basic results.
I thought maybe the inserts that the mill came with were just junk but I had also purchased some of these inserts yet they didn't make any better cut than the original inserts.
Any ideas if I can make this thing work or did I just put too much faith in the YouTube reviews and the face mill is just not suited for the little machine?
The first thing I noticed was that the R8 mandrel didn't fit up into the spindle bore as far as any of my other R8 stuff (drill chuck, collets). It seemed like the key way wasn't cut long enough but I machined it longer without making any difference.
I also noticed that the drawbar would bind at spots on its way to being tight. I can easily thread the drawbar into the mandrel with my fingers if it's not in the spindle, but once inserted there are 3 or 4 places that require me to put a wrench on the drawbar to advance it a half turn so I can continue to screw it in by hand. I figured maybe the threads aren't concentric to the mandrel.
All of this would have been something I could live with but when I tried to take a .005" cut on some mild steel the finish was horrible. It's like the inserts are wiping instead of cutting. Here's a pic where the left half of the piece was done with the face mill and the right side was a quickie pass with a 4 flute Niagra HSS center cutting end mill.
I tried different speeds, from around 400 RPM up to 800 RPM and feeds from really slow to about what I'd use with the end mill.
I also pulled out two of the inserts but the wiping action didn't change. I know these little mills don't have the power to take large DOC, but since that was never my intent, I figured it would at least take cuts of .010 or less. I should note that I also tried it with some 6061 and got the same basic results.
I thought maybe the inserts that the mill came with were just junk but I had also purchased some of these inserts yet they didn't make any better cut than the original inserts.
Any ideas if I can make this thing work or did I just put too much faith in the YouTube reviews and the face mill is just not suited for the little machine?