I have used 2mm and 3mm solid carbide cutters with great success for cutting ports, I obtained my cutters from Arc Eurotrade and was pleased with both the quality and speed of delivery, no connection to company just a very satisfied customer.

I decided to make my own loco wheels from solid rather than using cast so have milled eighteen spoked wheels. Used 3 mm carbide initially for finishing but found the speed on the SX2P limiting and bought HSS in packs of ten from Amazon, worked well enough to convince me that HSS was my better option. I did break a number but at the price I wasn’t bothered and most broke due to the rough cut out causing too big a cut and poor swarf clearing in the setup.

What ruins small carbide cutters is sudden jerky movements , like from backlash in the table, or just not winding the table at a uniform rate. Small cutters is small feed rates. They still cut even at 1200 rpm. The other important aspect is removing the very small swarf . So having the shopvac close to the cutting area to vacuum up the stuff and a valve from an airline hooked up to be blowing a small amount of air onto the cutter is also very effective in removing the swarf from small cutters. This will extend the life of the cutter considerably. I find air to be better than using loads of coolant on small cutters.

Neil

Plent of FC-3 type cutters about. MSC Direct usually have them on offer for about £5 a piece, similar from Cutwell.

Edited By JasonB on 26/06/2019 08:32:07

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… or perhaps just 'open to interpretation'

I believe that the term came into widespread use to distinguish these cutters from those with steel shanks and brazed-on tips.

MichaelG.