Cheap Chinese face mill?

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Hukshawn

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You get what you pay for?! No wayyy!!! Get outta town!!

Bought a 2" face mill on fleabay for 20 bucks. It came with 10 inserts. Which, big surprise, have no numbers on them. But the ad lists APMT1604PDER.

Anyways. I had to make an R8 arbor for it. That was a good lesson. Took the final cuts on the face mill arbor down to dimension in the mill to get rid of any run out.
So, it seems the 4 flutes are not even. Put a DTI on the inserts and they vary as much as .003.
I also have to just touch the inserts to the diamond stone to give it an edge cause there's a radius just before the cutting edge, so it just burnishes without sharpening.
So, as you can imagine, it doesn't leave a very nice finish. Did I likely buy a dud, or is there something I can do to save this mill? I'm gonna take the inserts out and test it again and see if it's just crummy inserts.
 
I had a 2.5" shell mill with 6 slotted brazed carbide cutting tools that came with my Jet-15 benchtop mill. It was truly junk. It beat itself to death the first time I tried to use it. Unless your face mill was brand new, someone could have put the wrong inserts in it. Something as small as the wrong radius on the cutting edge could keep it from working right. Do you have a photo of it? Maybe someone will recognize it.
 
It’s a cheap no name Chinese piece of junk. I wasn’t expecting much from it, but I was hopeful. It was all new. No one prior to mess it up. All me.
IMG_20171118_231350.jpg
 
Is there any runout when it's turning? I think that's what they call a shell mill, and it uses a shell mill holder to attach it to the mill. If everything is not perfectly true, it won't leave a good finish.

GG
 
I had tested various run outs later on, yes, the whole thing had a wobble, but my arbor was perfect.
 
I bought it from eBay, I contacted I seller. They'll likely just send another one.
 
There are different size shell mill holders. If you get the right size to fit yours, that might do the trick. It doesn't take much deviation to cause a problem.

GG
 
This is what I made. But with a second step where the screw is with a cap screw cause of how the mill was made. But the big shoulder, dog, and the arbor are the same
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It looks generically similar to a Taiwan 4-insert head I have which cuts like a dream. I have experienced surface finish variation in some knock-off inserts, so you may have 2 separate issues here where the tool is ok but inserts not. Although I would not have expected that on a 'package' where inserts included. But I have read of others who had similar bad experience so maybe some duds out there.

I've noticed on some knockoff lathe tool holders they use more 'standard' insert screws, which normally I think is a desirable thing vs. proprietary $$ screws on big name tooling. However the screw quality varies from 'ok' to 'yeesh'. If the screws don't engage the insert properly there can be some float in how the insert comes to final position when tightened. I'm inly guessing that the milled pocket edge is supposed to takes care of insert positioning & the screw just provides clamping force. Some tooling have tapered pockets to match the insert bevel & some are straight. But I cant determine if its a manufacturing shortcut or this is acceptable on 'brand name' tooling of a certain type/size. On lathe tooling this variation might not be as big a deal as long as its supported, but on mill tooling I can see where varying insert positioning results in different DOC per insert & that cant be a good thing. I'm going to check my setting variation, you have me curious.

btw are these rub marks or just felt pen or something?

SNAG-12-17-2017 0000.jpg
 
I purchased a similar Chinese shell mill with an arbor off E-bay and can find no fault with it and I have worked it hard. Like petertha I too wonder about those marks.
 
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