"Endmill shootout" - Comparing oldschool against modern endmills
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Comparing an oldschoolish FC3 throwaway endmill against modern carbide HPC and roughing endmills on the lowest end of feed and speeds, to see if the modern geometry makes any difference in that speedrange.
Recently discovered the best channel on youtube! This particular clip is old but it would have been interesting to make a similar comparison with the cheap China brands from Aliexpress
I have only gathered up a couple carbide mills but really see the benefits of having them in the shop.
Really enjoyed your presentation, thanks.
Colin ;-)
***** Hi colin, thanks for leaving a comment - Maybe they are not essential in a homeshop but as you say they have their benefits - And the day will come where you have to machine something hardened (Or plunge out an broken tap..)
Stefan
Thanks Stefan, very informative and the demonstration was very effective. I have a few cobalt and now I need to keep an eye out for some carbide. So now I know. Great videos!
If you Run a Homebuilt CNC, mostly with a "Router" for a spindle.. Solid Carbide is the way to go.. you can use HSS tools, but only in Aluminium, Wood and Plastics..
For Toolsteels, like 1.2510 you really need carbide Endmills..
Titanium also works with Carbide..
Very good demonstration of cutting speeds and feeds. I am a hobby machinist and have learned something. thank you.
DAVID ALLEN Thank you, thats the biggest compliment if somebody can take a piece of information from my videos :)
Great presentation Stefan, I listened to Carl from Lakeshore Carbide @ NYCCNC's open house a couple of weekends ago and he recommended the comparison you did for anyone that is just getting started. Since everyone's combination of machine, fixturing, available spindle speeds, materials, cutting tools etc are different its vital to do the testing you presented to optimize results. Your presentation is top shelf; keep up the great work.
YCM30cnc Seriously? Thats awesome :D
I would never have beliefed that this video will have that much impact and even be used in the real machining world for reference.
Thanks for the information about that :)
I don't think Carl saw your video, he just described doing exactly what you did. I would bet that most HSM types and probably a few pros 'wing it' more often than performing a scientific method test as you have shown in your video. I know from personal experience that insert vendors often send customers new inserts to try and the trial is often just 'tried it and it worked ok' versus something like "@ x ipm @ x doc @ x rpm in material x w/ tool holder x machine x fixture x the resulting surface finish was x for x trials". Before I got deeply involved in insert tracking in our production the trial results from the CNC staff were 'I like this one better', and not much else.
YCM30cnc Ah sorry, I missunderstood your post :)
But youre right, many machinists (even pro) just go by gut and feel, without realy trying out the limits of their tooling...:)
I always learn a lot from your videos. Thank you.
Hi Stefan,
Great job comparing endmills, I was sold on carbide after the first time I used one!
Thanks for doing this shootout!
Ray
Ray Caniglia Hi Ray, thanks for droping by - Same here, during apprenticeship we never had carbide, but then in the machine shop we ran almost exclusively carbide and everything was changed. Machining toolsteel and hardened pieces dry and without massive wear? Yeah, cool!
greetings,
Stefan
Hi Stefan.
Realy nice video (and channel btw).
I know this is two years old but...
Why you do not like coolant? Just messy or some other reason?
Also on previous videos, you usualy use climb cut. Any reason for that?
A very thorough and well executed test. Very informative, thank you!
Thank you for a very interesting useful video, I realise just how much too slow I run my milling speeds and feeds! Regards, Matthew
Matthew Tinker Thank you, yah sometimes we go way slower than realy needed, but as long as the tool ist cutting and not rubbing were fine most of the time.
Great way to show the differences. Thanks for the vídeo! Great work.
Very intense video. Great comparison. I think I will try to use carbide end mills when I can get them. Thanks for the video.
cerberus Thank you :) Just give em a shot, I think you will not be disapointed :)
Thanks Stefan for another in-depth tutorial.
Nicely done. It is good to see guys in their home shop doing some experimenting and testing. From my own experience as Tool and Die maker I can second this, you can still get better performance from "new style tools" even on machines that are no the latest. Good video work as well.
Yet another useful video there Stefan.
This clearly shows the usability of carbide on our slow rpm spindles.
Cheers
Bengt
bsjoelund Thank you :)
Yeah, goes to show that the old tale of "Those modern cutter geometries work only on the high end of speed/feed" is not completely true...
Hi Stefan! Thanks for the experiment. Funny that you were slot milling rather than side milling (using the endmillls to cut on one side only). I love the roughing endmills too. Regards. Daniel
AtelierDBurgoyne Yeah, I went with a full slotting cut because in my experience that is the operation where endmills tend to chatter - With a partial engagement most endmills run way more calm, especcialy if your side engagement is 1/3 or less of the endmills diameter. Thanks for commenting, Stefan
In our cnc's at work we have some solid carbide varible flute and alternating helix that recommend 400 sm in 1018crs. It's pretty amazing how far tooling has came in the last 10 years alone. The carbide best endmills and insert now are 3d printed carbide it makes the grain structure way tighter and smaller
Thank you for the video Stefan, I've only recently discovered carbide endmills and I must say I am a total convert. I picked up a couple of roughing endmills at a trade show to give them a shot and I was blown away with how much I could "abuse" them. Even on a shitty hobby machine with a 2500rpm max spindle speed they were hogging away in some fairly nasty hardened steels. I now buy them wherever possible.
Haz Hills Ha, yeah, I also often get blown away how much material you can hogg of with one of those :)
I always keep an eye on ebay, when there are carbide endmills that are cheap and made by a well known manufacturer, I just go and get them for my collection - That keeps the costs lower than buying new all the time.
Stefan Gotteswinter Any particular makes you go for out of interest?
Great demonstration and as a sidenote to anyone else, that was really really low end with the speeds & feeds for the carbide end mills. In normal use one could drive those at around 10x the speed and no much upper limit with the feeds either, if using good CNC tactics. Properly used they can last a couple of work shifts of making chips.
Jaakko Fagerlund Thank you! Youre absolutely right, that is realy the lowest end of feed/speed :) At work I run my endmills way faster and with more refined tool ways - HSM paths are pure fun, going for full depth with high feed and low side engagement :)
Hi Stefan
Good comparison
Thanks for these tests.We always learning
Keep 'em rolling
aRM
Great comparison of HSS cutters and the new carbide. Thanks!
Great show. The test pieces look pretty cool. Keep it up!
thank you for taking time to explain the s/f math
I have an inserted facing tool and that is always my first port of call, however having seen this I am going to try some endmills in carbide too. Good methodical video, unlike mine!
Many thanks, Roo.
great video glad I found this review as I am just a beginner to milling and just also bought some end mills so good advice!
Wow Stephan loved this video thanks for sharing Bill Aberdeen Scotland
Hi Stefan,
Was watching James Kilroy and he recommended watching this video. I must admit I backed up from the screen for fear of catching shrapnel but was surprised. Great education.
Marty
Marty Bernier Haha, I took cover myself when I was running the roughing endmill at full depth into the material, but it realy went very well :)
Thanks for commenting!
Stefan
7:25 "I wanna see chips"
Very interesting video Stefan. I have a small hobby lather that will take up to a 16mm cutter and I always use carbide now as it performs much better than HSS. regards from the UK
Great job as always, Stefan. I for one enjoy the math :) Thank you!!
Hi mate.
Thanks for this excellent lecture, I have learned a lot.
Marcel.
Very good. Really useful!😀
Really enjoyed this comparison!
hi stefan, great video great for people starting out in cnc machining , thanks Daniel
Nice testcuts! What is the name or brand of that "scale" for calculating feedrate/rpm?
Stefan, it would be very interesting to rewisit this topic with new machine and few years of extra experience
57 comments so far and none calling for a sequel. Good job, Stefan!
***** Or they all have enough seeing endmills tortured ;)
Your feeds and speeds slide rule is great! Do you have a link for where to buy one?
Guhring makes some great end mills that I use quite often when we're talking about those kinds of S&F and chiploads.
gbowne1 The Guhring (Gühring...they have two ways of spelling, one for Germany and one for the Rest of the world :D ) is absolute top notch, I have a few of their tools in my sortiment and they are great :)
I like their drills
Great job...echo James comments ...very useful for a newbie like me. Thanks
Matt Homer Thank you! But always take stuff like that with a grain of salt, the carbide ones are more expensive and if you get vibrations they die pretty fast - I completely forgott to mention that :(
Great video. The problem with many diy CNCs is, they use these high speed China spindles. Mine makes 24.000rpms and has 2.200W. But at 1.000rpm I can just hold the spindle with two fingers and make it stop. So slow speeds do not work with them.
Nevertheless, this is an impressive comparison. Thanks!
Stefan Gotteswinter Great job with the evaluation. I have been a big fan of carbide, and roughers, for quite some time. How many HP does you mill put to the spindle? I know its a 40 taper machine so are you not able to use much larger cutters if you want? I know with CNC its not really needed, tool changes just slow you down.
James Kilroy Hi James, thank you! I just wanted to show that there IS a difference between the classic trowaway endmill and a modern one and I think it worked out :D
My mill has only one horse (0,75kW) turning on the the spindle and its a beltdrive without backgear, so I am a bit limited on torque - But on the other hand it goes up to 6000rpm :)
And just for comparisation, a 10mm endmill is a "big" endmill for most of the stuff I do, I rarely stock endmills larger than that, only a few shell/facing mills.
The diameter is important and I had run the video second time to find out. It is 6 mm. I have an emco 11vp with a milling stup. Can you comment on the power you need to run those. I presume similar power between hss and carbide. If the power is limiting you can't increase the feed. Is carbide then still advantageous.? 200 watt motor.
Hi Stefan,
Great demo about running endmills, like you mentionned, the main points are, stability, constant feed, avoid rubbing or stopping, and not to refeed the chips in the cutter.
Ahhh.... metric system, have to convert everything...
The thing I hate about endmilling, is those little long and poky chips that gets everywhere in your skin, clothes, and, everywhere in the shop...
It's all about the pleasures of machining.
Cheers,
Pierre
pierre beaudry Haha, same here, I have to convert everything in you guys videos :)
Youre right all points you mentioned there are important to get a good result and good livetime out of an endmill.
My girlfriend doesnt like the poky chips either...they get everywhere, not only in the shop ;)
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment, pierre!
I really like my Guhring endmills, they perform very well for me. If you like carbide endmills try some carbide insert endmills, you can really eat material with those things. Nice video comparison.
bcbloc02 Ahhh, inserts ;) In fact I have a 50mm inserted cutter with round inserts, that thing is a beast. I run it at high speed and feed and a shallow depth of cut - It throws blue chips all around in the shop, and for that reason I dont use it very much... :)
Excellent video, I will have to do some similar tests on my Optimum BF20V. Find the limits for Feed and DOC.
Thanks for the demonstration Stefan. While I don't currently own any Carbide end mills, I am a fan of M42 Cobalt endmills. I picked up a few a while back at the local flea market for $2 a piece and use them almost exclusively now. Have you had much experience with them and if so, what was your opinion of them?
Tommy
Best Racing Tips Win At The Dragstrip The cobalt HSS can take quote a lot of abuse, nothing wrong with those :)
In fact the HSS roughing endmill I used in the video was a HSS cobalt endmill :)
Hi Stefan. Ok, I am a old and ancient newbie so I will ask the question you expected. Can you show how fast can the modern carbide cutters go on your new manual milling machine? Very, very interesting and useful channel you have and congratulations on your command of English. Far, far better than my German! Bob.
Great test!
What are the manufacturers part numbers for the HPC end mill that you ran at 120 mm?
Thanks!
your cutting data for the Hss mill is a bit in the low side dormer or sandvik mills usaly in 6mm goes 0,07 -0.12 per toth and 30Vc
Stefan, I can't believe I watched someone use a slide rule in 2020! It worked well - are you still using it?
Great & informative video as always, thanks.
Yes, its a very quick way to calculate/precision guesstimate speeds and feeds. Still use it :)
Just found this video and it really answered the core question I had about carbide on "hobby" machines that can't spin as fast as the CNC stuff. Curious though- did you ever do a part two?
Nice video and very informative, but in a production environment its not how much, but how many. If I am machining 500 clevis pins 16mm dia 7mm dia groove 25mm long in 304 stainless what is my optimum depth of cut, feed and speed?. I use 3 flute carbide end mills off ebay and my boss is an arsehole. Any help would be appreciated. lol.
I also thought the old school end mills was better than the new, one question, I buy used good condition end mills 8, 10, 12, 16mm for about €5 euros each and they work well, just look at the price of this for example:
ORION solid carbide HPC end mill, dia. 16.0x32x92 mm, HB shaft, type N
Solid carbide HPC end mill cutter UNI
4 cutting edges, AlCrN coating
It is €108, I could buy 21 used old school for that price, or am I looking at the wrong cutter?
Thanks
I appreciate the great info. As one of the few without carbide endmills, after seeing this comparison I'll be looking for a set. I'm guessing that there are differences between brands/quality; what are the specific features (if any) that I should be looking for in a set?
Robert Ross I am absolutely no fan of any endmill sets - I buy them in the diameters I use seperately. And as somebody mentioned make shure youre machine is stable enough - heavy vibrations are the death for carbide endmills.
As for brands, I think you can go with any well named manufacturer - I have some Guhring, Walter Prototyp, Mitsubishi, Garant and pHorn in my shop and they all work very well. Coated carbide with variable pitch and/or helix works very well.
@@StefanGotteswinter what do you think about chinesium carbide endmills? I have ordered some roughing and regular 3 and 4 flute ones. I think they will be absolutely fine in hobby use to prevent the need of coolant as when using hss ones
Great video, Stefan. And good lesson. Thx!
Another interesting vid Stefan I watched the last one also and meant to ask you about the diamond wheels you use to sharpen your lathe tools, could you recommend what grit the wheels should be for roughing out and finishing the grind.
Keep up the good work.
Alan.
Alan Pearce Hi Alan, my fine diamanond wheel is a D126 grit, thats not awfull fine, but it gives a nice surface :)My coarse diamond wheel I picked up on a trade show, its a metallic bounded very rough disc - Google for "Kaindl Diamond View Disc" and you will find a link to it :)
Nicely done... I'm definitely getting some of the modern 3-flute endmills... much faster and cleaner.
Such a complete discussion of HSS vs Carbide (including the math!) that I saved it to my 'favorites' folder. Thanks.
I notice that when you write the number '1' it looks almost like a little delta symbol. Is that just your personal style, or is it common in your corner of the world?
Seven/Ninths Creative I think thats my personal style, my handwriting is a bit messed up ;)
Thanks for dropping by!
The European crossed seven exists because of that style of writing the ones.
Very Good End mill
If you ever do an update, include those chinese HHS-AL 4 flute, which are sold in insanely cheap sets on ebay. I bought a set for woodwork and they are really nice and sharp but I don't have a machine rigid enough to repeat your test in steel.
Very interesting video with much useful information for a milling novice. Do you use Weldon holders for all cutting or just for roughing. What about collets?
Thank you.
Good information for great video thank you much
0:22 - Back at the beginning of the 20th century.....
"Ah tell you boy ! - you don't need 'dem dang fancy pants micro-meters ! "
"If-in you can't get good sizes with a graduated scale and a decent pair of spring calipers - you iz just plain in the wrong trade !"
yeah who needs less than 1 inch measurements ;d
When I supported our grinding shop at work back in the '80s, one of the old guys still used spring calipers to measure an ID that was a pain to measure with inside micrometers. Of course, he then measured the spring calipers with an outside mike. He had no problem holding his tolerances when _finish_ grinding.
I, on the other hand, sometimes just use spring calipers and a scale for non-precision work in my home shop. ;) I don't have any inside mikes at home because of their cost, just dial & digital calipers along with my inside spring calipers.
My question about carbide cutters relates to the rigidity of the machine tool. I've always heard that you need rigid machines in order to use carbide cutters, especially if you want to use them anywhere close to their advertised cutting speeds. Unfortunately I'm afraid that my Chinese mill-drill "kit of parts" isn't rigid enough to get my money's worth if I tried to use carbide cutters. I think....
Another great video!
Can you explain the differences between variable pitch and variable helix?
Thanks!
Chris
Christopher Beasley With the variable helix the leadangle of the helix (which is with the highhelix cutters most of the time something around 45° differs from flute to flute by a few degrees. On the variable pitch the teeth are not divided by an equal angle (For a three flute endmill not 120-120-120deg but for example something like 117, 120, 123).
Both ensure to break up harmonics and vibrations and give a much softer cut.
Nice show! Thanks, professor..;)
Erling Weiseth :D
Great idea and presentation of testing of end mills. One can however never emphasise enough the brittle nature of carbide. Any sudden change in loading can chip great lumps out of a carbide tool, be it from slack lead screws, insecure clamping or plain ordinary clumsiness in manual feeding. I plead guilty on all counts, paid the fines and now have a fine collection of "customised" end mills:>)
Note to self, must design an EDM to cut the broken ends off carbide end mills to save hours of grinding.and air pollution.
Chris Stephens A cut-off edm would be awesome..or at least a cut-off machine that the tool/die guys use with a diamond cut-off wheel and water cooling to keep the dust under controll.
Youre absolutely right - While carbide can take quite a bit of abuse its very brittle - In my shop death to carbide is often the mentioned clumsiness ;)
But keep the broken ones around, they are handy for all kinds of custom tools, like engraving bits, small boring tools, to be soldered on a piece of steel as turning tools and so on...
Thanks for commenting!
Stefan your videos are very helpfull for newbies in machining.
May i ask you a question plz,I have a manual benchnmill, how can i mesure the mm/min feed on the bed?No auto feed offcourse.Is there an instrument to give me the table speed in realntime?
Stefan, Could you help me ? I break the head of my carbite endmills but when I see these cnc machines work, there is something I am doing wrong !!? Is it Because I feed with hand ? or not using enough coolant!!? or is it something else that I dont know about?Thank you Stefan...
Hi all - I’m just getting into machining and am looking for a vise like that shown in the video, with the guide for aligning pieces. Does anybody know what model is in the video, or have any recommendations? I have a Metba MB-0 which I think is close to the size of a Deckel FP-1. Thanks for any guidance!
Hi Stefan: Very good video on carbide end mills. I find your videos very well presented. Could you give us a tour of your shop and equipment?
Jorge from Toronto, Canada
He already made a shoptour video, here you can see it.
watch?v=Xf7DuvcScyk
Philipp Aznable Thanks for the info Philipp but the link that you posted is not click able.
Jorge
Jorge Scordamaglia Philip Aznables link gets you to a shop tour of mine :)
Thanks for commenting!
excellent video
Guten abend Herr Stefan, thank you for the maths! :) And thank you for this video.
***** Bitteschön! :)
Very informative. Thank you
Hope to see the follow up...
5000 RPM
or Approx 100 Meters per minute Surface speed, and 600mm per minute feed at 6mm DOC .03mm per tooth
Approx 300 SFPM, 24 IPM feed @ .240 DOC .0012" per tooth.
I enjoyed the comparison Stefan. As I did with all your videos. Subscribed of course.One thing to mention is that your machine is quite rigid compared to many hobby machines, and it makes a lot of difference.I have been using my friends Bridgeport clone to hog out a bucket of chips these days. And I had to really back down on the feed and speed in comparison to what I'm used to on my TOS machine (a Deckel style machine). And if you hear that sound you had in one of your cuts, that would be the song of death for a carbide tool. Not so much for a HSS tool though. They ane not as brittle. Try to inspect the cutting edges on HSS vs carbide in a microscope after "overclocking" them.In my "laptop mill" (Proxxon) I use only HSS for that reason. It is not rigid enough for anything but cutting cheese.I guess my advice is to listen to when your tool is telling you you reached the limit. As you actually did in your video without emphasizing it.
I might add the quality and rigidity of the machine your running those end mills on significantly affects their durability and performance. Here in the US, many home shops are quick to buy cheap and dirty Chinese machines because they don't understand the benefit of quality construction and why this costs extra.
John M Youre absolutely right! Unfortunately carbide is somewhat brittle and is altered by vibrations - So there is a lower limit of machine stability thats sensible for using carbide endmills - But one has to try that with his given machine.
I am also not the biggest fan of the chinese machines, but even with those one could get very good results. I see most of the chinese more like a set of castings to improve in the shop.
Thanks for your thoughts on that!
For many, the question is not "cheap Chinese or more costly rigid machine?" but "cheap Chinese or nothing?"
interesting to note that Stefan has since got rid of his European mill with the Deckel head (to which he had added CNC capability) for a manual mill of Chinese origin - which of course he promptly treated as a kitset of castings to be improved.
I sympathise particularly on getting rid of CNC (why should computers have all the fun?) but my first milling machine was possibly the worst mill Rong Fu ever made, and the happiest day in my life was the day I sold it, so I'm not quite ready to go back there.
Stefan, I have the same mill vise as you and was wondering what you were using to hold it down? I haven't seen one like yours. Thanks in advance. -Adam
Hey Stefan,
Great comparison video. See what happens when you try to see what the tool can do. These tools can do some work! Thanks for sharing. Send me an email. I have something for you.
All the best,
Tom
oxtoolco Hi Tom, I just dropped you an email :)
Stefan
Hi Stefan, In this comparison, you held the endmills in a Weldon/set screw style endmill holder. Do you see much difference when holding them in an ER collet? I would think that an ER collet would give you better concentricity, but perhaps it's negligible. -Chris
Actually this is a myth that is propagated by a lot of YT channels. It seems to make sense to have worse runout with a weldon holder, but if you see at the specs, you will find that a cheap 20mm weldon holder has something like 0.01mm runout tolerance with a 20mm endmill. While the normal ER32 collets have a 0.015mm runout tolerance.
So actualy weldon is better unless you buy the high precision collets and collet chucks, these are even better with something in the order of 5 micron max runout.
Great information!
Thats a cool little milling machine you have there. What model is it?
Jonathan Feist Its an 1927 built Deckel G2 engraving machine that I converted to a vertical milling machine by adding a Deckel 40 taper highspeed head, then I did a full conversation to cnc using linuxCnc as the controller software.
Thats a great machine for a cnc conversion. Unfortunatly in New Zealand there arent many old machines of this size around so Im having to build one from scratch. You do fantastic work btw, Im rather enjoying going back through your past videos. Just regarding the spindle, whats the max rpm it will do? Also what are the max rpm that you tend to use? Im trying to design a spindle for my build but im not sure how fast it really needs to go.
www.cnczone.com/forums/vertical-mill-lathe-project-log/270552-solid-bench-top-mill-build-warning-large.html
I believe that head runs up to 6000 rpm. Interestingly, Stefan has since sold it and gone to a smaller Chinese machine without CNC *or* high rpm capability, and a much smaller spindle taper. It's not something I can imagine an American ever doing, (certainly not "Tim the Tool Man" types) but it obviously makes sense for Stefan and he doesn't seem to have any regrets.
I think it demonstrates that we should be careful not to necessarily emulate the choices of others, whose needs will differ from ours, regardless of how much more than us they know.
One of the most informative videos I have watched in some time. Especially since I work in metric (I grew up in it). I found the formulas very interesting and I can use them. I have a Proxxon MF70 mill. The biggest collet it will take is 3.3 mm aaand I have collets for 3, 2, and 1 mm. I have only manual feed pn this mill but that could be overcome with care. I was very interested in the maths, I was an engineer once so they do not scare me.. I would be very grateful if you would publish them, perhaps as an answer to this comment. I came to the same conclusion you did. Carbide cutters are much better even than the Proxxon cutters; and even here in the US I can get carbide cutters. The Proxxon cutters are very good (after all, made in Deutschland) but the do break quite often.
+Juan Rivero Hi Juan. I love the comment " I was an engineer once " How did you stop being an engineer?. :-) I thought once an engineer always an engineer. best regards.
Er, well, I had to earn a living and it was easier to be a programmer where I was living. I still have the engineer's outlook, though.
Hi Stefan. Ich bin ein neuer Zuschauer deines Kanals, habe aber die bekannten (adam, keith, tom, chris) schon länger im Visier :-) ich würde gerne auch mal chips erzeugen....hast du Tipps für eine Maschine die es im Heimbereich ermöglicht auch mal brauchbare Teile herzustellen ohne gleich dein Preis eines Kleinwagens hinzublättern?
Grüße aus Hannover!
Please suggest good end mills
Very informative. I like your slide rule type feed and speed calculator, do you know where I could get one?
Bruce Stangeby Thank you! I got that speed/feed calculator from my tool supplier "Hoffmann tools":
www.hoffmann-group.com/US/en/toolcrib/Mono-machining/HSS-drills/Speeds-and-feeds-calculator-GARANT/p/110965-
But be aware, its all metric :)
Mr. Gotteswinter:
What brand and model CNC milling machine do you have in your shop?
Do you use a Heidenhain controller?
-Mills
Bennett Mills It was a Deckel G2 engraving machine, retrofitted with ballscrews, stepper motors and glas scales. The controller was PC based, running LinuxCnc and Mesa hardware.
But the machine is sold, I am going back to manual :)
Hi Stefan, that chip load seems extremely small, 0.007mm which is not even half a thou. Is this right? What reference material are you using for this?
Yes - But: That is with a sharp tool not a problem - It will take a clean chip without rubbing. The material in this case was C45, a low carbon steel.
Stefan Gotteswinter how is AISI/SAE 1045 a low carbon steel? That would be medium carbon steel by any definition. Hell, hot rolled 1045 has nearly double the ultimate tensile strength (and thus hardness) of hot rolled 1018.
Mr. Stefan, if 1300rpm*3*0.007chipload gets rounded up to about 30mm/min, then 1300*4*0.007 should be rounded to 4/3 times that value, which is 40mm/min - otherwise you are not loading those 4-flute carbide endmills correspondingly - just sayin :-)
Stefan thank's for sharing Man. I have a question which I really hope you could help me with. I am some how a new beginer, and my milling machine is a mini 500w one. When ever I want to cut even half a mill. It makes all kind of bad noise and I have checked everything, that it runs good and tru. in every angles and rotation too and it does. Is that because the mill is a very low HP. one!!? but I have seen people can get away with much more than what I can!!? any sujestions Please ? thank you very much
While I am no expert machinist, since no-one has replied to your question, I will pass on my ideas on what your problems may be. You mention that your milling machine is a mini 500 Watt machine. Almost all of these machines are made for sale at a very low price somewhere in China. They are often assembled by inexperienced and largely untrained people, and that is why they can be sold as cheaply as they are. If you are just a beginner and are trying to learn by watching youtube, I would suggest that you find an experienced machinist friend, to look over your mill, and adjust it to tighten up the gibs, and try to take the slack out of the machine movements. These machines are often pretty awful as supplied ( a bit like a new Mercedes Benz, but with all the bolts and screws done up finger tight) but they can be greatly improved by pulling them apart, cleaning all the workings replacing poor quality bearings, scraping the dovetail ways etc, but your trouble is most likely that you are inexperienced, and don't have the knowledge to make good your machine yet. There is a lot of knowledge out there and Google is your friend, so look for mini mill rebuilds or mini lathe modifications and you will find lots of info. There are also helpful forums like Home Shop Machinist, MetalworkForums.com and no doubt lots of others, a Google search will get you plenty of hits, and with luck you may find another enthusiastic amateur machinist living close by who would be willing to get you started. Good luck
With my small hobby milling machine I have found that morse taper collets, clamping work directly to the table and minimal quil extension helps keep things rigid too.
Tanks for this video. Very informative, and helps out people like my self, wondering to purchase Carbide vs HHS. Its Carbide for now on. :-)
Seems to me you'd want your chip load closer to .07 mm.
thank you for your info ! would you recommend a number of end mills for Al and steel milling to a noob amateur.
Hello.I can Help you ,and give you some advise for end mills MY Email:zfcuttingtools@Yahoo.com Whatsapp:+8613515250417
Excellent
thanks, nice job
Very informative video Stefan! I didn't see any TiN coated "gold bling" endmills so thought I'd ask what coatings you prefer to use for general work? Thanks again! Jeff
Jeffrey Pfeifer Most of the endmills I have are TiAlN coated - I cant realy get the nice golden TiN coated endmills from well named manufactures anymore, only from the chinese...and they are not that great...
what milling machine was used?
You can go significantly faster with carbide tools. normally I would go for 25 Vc with hss and around 140 Vc with carbide, resulting in much faster production speed, better finishes, more stability, and considerably more precision
Hss also requires coolant when pushing it, carbide won't break a sweat even dry
Stefan, what kind of mill do you have? Never seen one like your.
Custom Woodwind and Brass It was (I sold it this month) a Deckel G2 engraving machine with a retrofitted 40taper highspeed head (also made by Deckel). The cnc retrofit was also done by me.
Nice job... That mill looks amazing. Did you replace it with another mill/cnc?
I Switched to Solid Carbide in my Shop, but that's only because i mostly machine titanium, I still do have some HSS Endmills to machine Aluminium..
These Sliderules are great, i used to have one from Kennametal when i worked in a Toolroom, and later when i built my own CNC mill, i designed and made my own, since it is such a nice tool to have around.. and it's also a cool thing to make as a CNC project..