Much of my home-shop machining experience has been aluminum (experimental aircraft applications). I'm advancing into the "hard stuff" now (mild steel).
I never paid much attention to how many flutes my end mills had, I just purchased what the local Production Tool Supply had on hand. The aluminum didn't seem to care.
I recently needed to cut a 1 -1/16in diameter counter bore 0.125in deep in some angle iron, to accommodate flush mounting some weld studs I fabricated. The only end mill I had was a 2-flute.
It did the job for me, but it "chattered" to beat the band, even with flooding with oil. It seemed to like a faster feed rate as well.
Can anyone advise "when and why" to use end mills with various numbers of flutes?
I never paid much attention to how many flutes my end mills had, I just purchased what the local Production Tool Supply had on hand. The aluminum didn't seem to care.
I recently needed to cut a 1 -1/16in diameter counter bore 0.125in deep in some angle iron, to accommodate flush mounting some weld studs I fabricated. The only end mill I had was a 2-flute.
It did the job for me, but it "chattered" to beat the band, even with flooding with oil. It seemed to like a faster feed rate as well.
Can anyone advise "when and why" to use end mills with various numbers of flutes?