Odd face mill

[Dan CarterParticipant @dancarter89683]

[Dan CarterParticipant @dancarter89683]

Does anyone use one of these ?

It appears to be a kind of face mill (on a 27mm shell arbor) – it came with my Superlux, I noted that the "toolbits" in it are mild steel and swiftly put it on high shelf. Curiosity got the better of me this evening, and I took it for a ride on a bit of scrap aluminium, and got quite a nice finish,

I am now wondering about putting some hss in and giving it a proper try. Thoughts ?

Regards,

Dan

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

You say the tool bits are mild steel.  Carbon steel tool bits were the thing before HSS and are still capable of giving good finish depending on speed and depth of cut

Edited By roy entwistle on 15/11/2016 21:27:34

[Paul LousickParticipant @paullousick59116]

Dan,

HSS inserts should work OK and easy to re-sharpen. A bit like a double bladed fly cutter.

Carbide tipped cutters are also available on fbay.

Paul

[Dan CarterParticipant @dancarter89683]

Roy, no really – dead soft with a file. Mild was optimistic, cheese may be more accurate

Paul, is actually 4 cutters, although not obvious from photo. When you say carbide tipped cutters, you mean like a lathe tool or something specific to this?

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Are you sure that it does not have brased on carbide tips ? On the right hand tool bit I think I can see a slight difference in colour at tha bottom pf the tool.

Les.

[Brian OldfordParticipant @brianoldford70365]

Posted by Les Jones 1 on 15/11/2016 21:38:14:

Are you sure that it does not have brased on carbide tips ? On the right hand tool bit I think I can see a slight difference in colour at tha bottom pf the tool.

Les.

If you look really closely on an enlarged image you can see that on both cutters.

[Dan CarterParticipant @dancarter89683]

Les, Jones,

You are absolutely right – I have no idea how you saw it, I can only just see the line now with the the thing held up to the light, the whole lot has been ground together and looks like one piece.

The carbide is chipped and blunt, but will give it a real test now I know it might work …

Thanks,

Dan

[Paul LousickParticipant @paullousick59116]

Dan,

This is the type of insert I was referring to. Purchased them some time ago but cannot remember where. They were listed as CNC inserts and I have ground them to suit different tool holders. These are 1/4" square but other sizes and handing were advertised.

Paul

[Paul LousickParticipant @paullousick59116]

These are closer to the shape which you need. They have a 1/2" square shank.

[DustyParticipant @dusty]

The big problem with this type of face mill is grinding and setting the inserts. At first glance it looks as if you can grind the insert freehand, this is not the case. The inserts need to be identical in every respect otherwise one insert will do all the cutting, this means you need to have access to a cutter grinder or a suitably modified bench grinder. The very tip (the point) needs to be in precisely the same place in every insert and the angles need to be identical. Once you have that then setting becomes easy, well easier. This is achieved by bringing the cutter down to the table of the mill with a piece of flat plate on the table and with the inserts slack bring them into contact with the plate. I would use a sheet of paper under the tip of the insert and adjust till the paper just drags repeat for each tip. You will find that one insert cuts more than the rest (they always do) How do I know, I had one which I threw away, spent more time setting it up than using it.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I've toyed with the idea of making something like this, but my thought was to make the tool slots at increasing radius, by say 1/16, so slot 1 is at say 1" rad, slot 2 at 1.0625" etc. Then set the cutters so that slot 4 is deepest, slot 3 is 0.04 higher, slot 2 0.08 etc. The tools would then cut at 4 different heights, and so it wouldn'y matter if they weren't exactly the same geometry. It would remove 0.16" depth with 4 separate 0.04" cuts at the same time.The traverse rate would be quite slow, you'd need to set it for a 1 tooth cutter, but the depth would compensate.

Someone tell me why it won't work and save me the trouble of making it!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by duncan webster on 16/11/2016 10:36:34:

Someone tell me why it won't work and save me the trouble of making it!

.

… At first sight, I see only a 1in 4 chance of cutter #1 making contact first.

Russian Roulette ?

MichaelG.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I've got one, it came with the Economy mill I used to have. Useful enough to keep when I sold the mill and then make a 2MT arbor for it. Works adequately on a first cut for an iron casting but better insert cutters are available for reasonable money these days.

Rod

[John McNamaraParticipant @johnmcnamara74883]

Hi

Here is one in action cutting an epoxy casting, sorry the photo below is blurred.
I got mine with a mill drill. its a pain to set it up for steel, you have to set the cutter heights with the cutter mounted in the spindle, there is no centre hole at the cutter end to mount it between centres in a cutter grinder, so unless you have a cutter grinder with a socket to mount it in your machine spindle is probably your best option. You also have to set the carbide tipped tools all to the same radius at the same time.

As you can see it worked well on the castings and topped off the steel inserts as well so they can be made to work.

I have tried it on mild steel, I did not get a nice result. I will keep it for the epoxy work, the silica sand is quite abrasive, Its not worth blunting a good cutter for this sort of work.

**LINK**

**LINK**

Regards
John

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 16/11/2016 10:51:25:

Posted by duncan webster on 16/11/2016 10:36:34:

Someone tell me why it won't work and save me the trouble of making it!

.

… At first sight, I see only a 1in 4 chance of cutter #1 making contact first.

Russian Roulette ?

MichaelG.

Realised I described it wrong. The cutter at the biggest radius is set highest. The tips have to be ground something like the same, but not to the thou

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Give it a go, Duncan

MichaelG.

[Dan CarterParticipant @dancarter89683]

So overall might be worth keeping. I could probably also try Duncan's idea pretty easily by shimming the cutters out in their slots …

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

When I bought my Rexon mill there was supposed to be a six cutter face mill similar to the above, but the place I bought the milling machine from refused to include it, I found later that they were selling them separately, the firm went into receivership a few weeks later. I think the method suggested of fitting the body in the mill, and lowering it to a flat plate, then fitting the inserts would be the way to go. Probable not as rigid as a face cutter with indexable inserts mounted directly.

Ian S C

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

I had a couple cutters of that style. They came with mill-drill machines. I never used them. With zero degree radial and axial rake I figured the surface finish they would produce would be poor. It would also draw a lot of horsepower for the metal removal rate. They could only be resharpened properly in a tool and cutter grinder. I also found the cutter/shank mounting dimensions did not match any standard shell mill adapter. With all those negatives, they went directly into the scrap bin.

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

Actually got 1 similar from Chester when I bought the LUX mill in circa 2005, they threw it in, and I threw it out.

never even bothered using it.

[Dan CarterParticipant @dancarter89683]

A slight diversion – I recently got this indexable face mill from ebay:

I only bought it because it came with an R8 arbor I wanted, for less money in total than most of the suppliers were selling the arbor alone (I would have bought from arc but they were out of stock). In the end I have ended up with a full refund because the R8 arbor was M12 instead of 7/16 as advertised.

Anyhow, the cutter is awful, chatters horribly and barely cuts (aluminium). Is there something in the nature of the style with the circular inserts which is problematic? I can't immediately see what else could be wrong with it.

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

The full radius inserts should give a good surface finish. You can get high rake inserts for Aluminium / plastics.

I use them even in steel. My round insert cutter is 75mm Ø and cuts very softly , Can't tell for sure from the pics, but the inserts loaded just now look like normal Positive ones. Try the high rake ones and you should notice a big difference.

Also a lot depends on the machine rigidity and your depth of cut. Don't be tempted to take large depth of cut if your mill is a lightly built machine, the two don't belong together.

[John McNamaraParticipant @johnmcnamara74883]

For high quality facing it is hard to beat a fly cutter; easy to make and reliable. With a high speed steel tool easily ground when it gets blunt. or a brazed tip carbide tool if you can grind it.

Make one with a thick heavy disk, the thicker the better to reduce chatter. My biggest is 150mm diameter, made from an old transmission flange. Make the biggest disk your mill can drive.

**LINK**

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

I'll second the fly cutter use, I have had a set of three in my w/shop for years, I was grinding up some hss lathe tools recently and sharpened a 1/4 " hss bit for the fly cutter, when tried on milling m/c a 5 thou cut across an 1 1/2" lump of bms left a smooth finish, tried a 10 thou cut and again left a beautiful finish, why have I not used these before!! I will sharpen the others up, I have seen a f/cutter made from a chuck backplate for big areas

Mick

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