I have to make a whole lot of 0.177" holes 0.6" into aluminum. I have a 2-fl 1/8" carbide endmill and a single-flute 1/8" carbide and a Taig mill, which I'm trying to use at 10K RPM although I did bump it down a speed which makes it maybe 7K or so. The bit has a cutting length of 0.375" (the actual flute length is a bit larger). I don't have coolant or an air blaster. I have reasons not to want to use a drill bit, partly because I'd just like to know how to do this with a mill for similar but noncylindrical bores which couldn't be done with a drill. The single flute so far has shown to be far superior, but still not successful.
I keep clogging the bit here once I exceed the cutting length, no matter which way I went. In some cases the aluminum welded itself into the carbide flutes and couldn't be removed, already destroyed a number of bits.
* CW or CCW helical bore, 0.1" steps. Since the width of the hole is less than 2x the bit diameter, it's possible to do this, except no, it clogs once it gets deep in past the cutting length. Also welds crud all over the walls.
* Step down in center, move to the side, do a flat circle- same problem basically.
* Peck the center all the way down, then go back to the top and helical down to enlarge it. The idea being that the prior helical boring attempt was just pushing chips around in the hole, but the peck gives no room for chips to avoid getting lifted out when it withdraws. It was a nice theory! But what was happening here is that as the pecks get deep, the chips tend to stick on the flutes and fail to throw off when the bit withdraws to the top, defeating the point of pecking. Still ended up with crud lightly welded to the walls of the hole, too.
Any ideas on how to run this operation with this bit?