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End mills to start with?
- Thread starter DavidR8
- Start date
)- Joined
- Dec 12, 2016
- Messages
- 493
3/4" is probably the maximum diameter you want to use on smaller mills, and most of the time 1/2" or smaller will work out better. That said I have one of the Galcern 3/4" insert end mills and its pretty good for tougher materials and is my go-to end mill. I also have their 2" diameter F45 insert face mill, which is good for light facing operations, probably much smoother/faster than a flycutter. I would not go any bigger than that with a face mill. These are not cheap but can do a lot of the work. My mill is a Rockwell vertical/knee setup (3/4 size BP).
If you look around you can often pick up assortments of older but decent quality US made HSS end mills at auctions, estate sale and the like at very reasonable prices. These are often great for odd and smaller jobs.
I have a basic R8 collet set and try to get end mills that fall on one of the "standard" sizes. 3/4" is generally the limit with R8 but thats about the most that the smaller mills can reasonably handle.
If you look around you can often pick up assortments of older but decent quality US made HSS end mills at auctions, estate sale and the like at very reasonable prices. These are often great for odd and smaller jobs.
I have a basic R8 collet set and try to get end mills that fall on one of the "standard" sizes. 3/4" is generally the limit with R8 but thats about the most that the smaller mills can reasonably handle.