[RobosaurusRex]

My cheap imported 1/2-inch 4-flute HSS center-cutting end mill is worn out and I need to replace it. It's part of a set that I bought to learn on. My plan was to replace them with high-quality American-made carbide end mills as they wore out.

I'm a hobbyist with an X-2 mini-mill. Three days ago I unexpectedly purchased a nice X-2 CNC mill. I expect my new end mill is going to spend a lot time on the CNC machine.

So, here are my questions:

1) Is there a difference between end mills used on CNC machines versus manual machines? I noticed that Enco sells some "NC/CNC" end mills made by Atrax.

2) What should I buy that will give me the most bang for the buck? A machinist friend swears by the Niagara cutters sold by MSC but they seem to be very expensive compared to the American-made Atrax mills sold by Enco.

BTW, I work with both aluminum and steel and I don't have an unlimited budget.

Thanks,

Rob

[mark c]

We've bought some Atrax end mills at work and I like them. Seem to be good quality. We do plastic, aluminum, SST and titanium

HTH

Mark

[Superman]

Work out the most efficient cutters by what your machine can handle

ie max RPM, max feedrates, required surface speeds for the different materials, Depth of cut and Width of cut relationships ( chip volume )

It is not good to buy top of the range gear if your machine can only do 3000 RPM and run at 10" per minute feeds.

Alum carbide cutters need to be sharp ( 3 flute is a good middle choice, 2 flutes feed too slow and they flex, 4 flute don't have the flute clearance for chip evacuation but these are stiffer ( and can be used for finishing ops ), hi-helix allows a slicing action to lift the chip up and out )

Carbide on steels, stay down on diameters (1/4-3/8" area) as price is higher for the larger sizes so keep them for special jobs, same goes for the small cutters as these would blunt and break quite easy ( keep these for small area machining ).
Ideally for steels the more flutes the faster the feedrates you can apply, but it comes back to your machine being able to hold the tolerances using these faster feeds and not lose shape definition

[Hayworthmilling]

The Putnam HSS endmills from Enco are low in cost and pretty decent. Look for the ones on sale (usually 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2" diameters in standard flute lengths, not long nor stubby).

An X2 doesn't have enough hp or rigidity to take advantage of high performance carbide tooling designed for 10-50hp VMCs.