[uli12us]

You are right, thats a bit heavy feed for this small endmill. I think with 30IPM/750mm/min it will be much better. I would decrease the finishamount to 0.01". although you rough your part dry, its much better, you finish your part wet. If you use a brush to bring a small amount of Spiritus, kerosene, or other liquid to the area, that is enough. You can use a small garden spraygun as well. You should use clockingmill (i hope thats the right word thats the only one I found in the online dictionary, it means, that the tool rotation and the feed direction are in the same direction. If you machine an outside contour, the feed runs clockwise.)

[Ben S]

If he's doing lights out machining I don't think he wants to have to brush something on.

[Mysta2]

Man I feel stupid. I had the definition of "high helix" completely backwards in my head. Looking at an actual high helix I thought chips would get jammed up in the tighter spiral.

The cutter is out much farther in the pic than it was for that cut (that's the setup for the following side)

Yes in a lot of cases I can not stand by to brush something on, but at the moment I'm just trying to learn how to increase my finish quality. Once I learn some better techniques I can decide how best to implement them for our various situations.

Thanks again all

Please keep the suggestions coming.

Kit

[dertsap]

Man I feel stupid. I had the definition of "high helix" completely backwards in my head. Looking at an actual high helix I thought chips would get jammed up in the tighter spiral.
Kit

the hi helix will have a much better chip evacuation and it will handle the depth better , a decent hi helix is designed for full slot cutting at 1 x dia or more , where a standard end mill is typically 1/2 x dia . Chances are that the biggest problem is chatter which is being caused by too much depth of cut for that small of a diameter tool . It may help if you try to profile in two depth passes , also conventional milling helps these issues quite often , but without the use of coolant then the finish will probably come out poor with conventional . Personally I'm not keen on using standard end mills on aluminum , they work but high helix blow them away , the chip evacuation is better , they'll perform at much greater speeds and feeds , and the shearing action due to the angle produces a much better finish (to name a few advantages) , there is a difference in price , but they are cheaper in the big scheme of things if parts are being machined faster and better

first of all,uncoated carbide is best with aluminum with or with out coolant,aluminum will slowly build up on coated cutters

that may have been the case a number of years ago , coatings for aluminum cutters shouldn't get confused with coatings for meant steel . the coatings on the aluminum cutters are without a doubt a much better choice than using uncoated cutters .
I run a lot of aluminum in a day and while my toolpaths are what I'd consider passive aggressive , I do like to push the tools to the max when I can . I've had numerous occasions when I've optimized jobs using the coated end mills and they've run great for a number of runs . I've had occasions when the coated end mills weren't available or on hand , and I've swapped out for identical uncoated end mills and ended up with less than desirable results on the same jobs (melt down ) . Generally I find the performance difference to be 10 - 25 % . this has happened on numerous occasions with identical tools , the only difference was either being coated or not . I'm not sure whether that difference in performance is substantially important to anyone , but it is in the shop that I work in