Roughing end mill = Awesome!

TroyO · Feb 27, 2011

In my order from www.richontools.com I dropped a 3/4" roughing HSS end mill in the cart. I honestly figured it was too big for the mini mill, but what the heck, it was cheap.

It is a BEAST, LOL. It works great in the mini mill and can take unimaginable bites of aluminium!

I was roughing down some 1/2" AL blocks for a DRO and decided to try that out. I was taking full depth, 1/2" wide passes without breaking a sweat (Or a chatter, LOL). Despite the grooves it leaves in the surface, for merely functional parts it works just fine without a finish pass.

If you are tooling up for a mini mill, a big rougher would make my short list for sure. And, 3/4" isn't too big.

Chaffe · Feb 28, 2011

called a "ripper" very good for roughing as you say, i have used them many times

Tin Falcon · Feb 28, 2011

thanks for the info I have considered oering one but on the to do list for a long time.
Tin

rake60 · Feb 28, 2011

I have never tried a roughing end mill in my mini mill.
I need to do that.

At the machine shop I used to work for, we called the "Hog Mills".
They LOVE to EAT!

Rick

TroyO · Feb 28, 2011

Here is a little video of it in action, although I think I had my feed rate a little too high on that first pass. (Or spindle speed too low.... )

Also note, the surface finish is only nice on end milling.... side milling leaves a series of grooves.

Bonus vid... I wanted to show a pass using the power feed anyway, figured I'd use the rougher and kill two birds with one stone.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHHaK9MHpLA[/ame]

kvom · Mar 1, 2011

I recently acquired a 3/4" shank mill with 2 carbide inserts and a 1-3/4" cut diameter. On the Bridgeport it takes .200" off aluminum at 15 ipm without breathing hard (deepest cut I've tried so far when making some vise soft jaws). I've been using it to face CRS, but so far only up to .05 DOC. Finish in aluminum is similar to a flycutter, but works a lot faster. Supposedly with different inserts it can take some pretty big cuts in steel too..