which cutters?

[mick70Participant @mick70]

planning on doing some milling in lathe.

following on from my question of what collets,i now would like info on what would be a good set of cutters to start with?

[mick70Participant @mick70]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I would not bother with a set just get some individual ones as sets tend to be cheaper quality and you won't use all the sizes.

For upto 6mm Dia I find the FC-3 type cutters the cheapest and good quality, The ones from MSC when they have them on special which is most of teh time work out at less than £3 for a 6mm.

Over 6mm I have found the Premium HSS from ARC work well and reasonable price, 3-flute standard length should do you unless you intend to do a lot of Aluminium work in which ase the dedicated ali cutters are worth getting.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

On the contrary i would say a set is a good start to any collection, although not complete, get the individual sizes as you need them afterwards, this is how i started collecting drills after all.

If you're committed to Jasons approach then get some good cobalt HSS and go for 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16mm I find it's the smaller sizes you need more of because you can always mill a bigger slot with a smaller end mill but you can't do the reverse! 

Don't expect to get great removal rate from tiny endmills because frankly they can't handle it(like 2.39mm), if you need to mill very small grooves then a horizontal cutter is a much better bet. You can find them floating around ebay quite cheaply if you're lucky. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 17/07/2016 11:04:57

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Michael W I'm afraid I have agree with Jason Buy what you need not what you want

Roy

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Ah but do you! the deadliest attraction to model engineering is based on what you want  The most committed treat it like a need i guess 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 17/07/2016 11:27:08

[VicParticipant @vic]

Also consider getting a fly cutter, something with a swing up to a few inches is handy.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by Michael Walters on 17/07/2016 10:55:50:

Don't expect to get great removal rate from tiny endmills because frankly they can't handle it(like 2.39mm), if you need to mill very small grooves then a horizontal cutter is a much better bet. You can find them floating around ebay quite cheaply if you're lucky.

 

You shouldn't really be using endmills for slots anyway, a 2-flute cutter is best for accurate sizing and better chip clearance. 3-flute are a good compromise as you don't need a set of 2-flute and a set of 4-flute which could leave you with twice as many unused cutters!

By horizontal cutters I assume you mean something like a woodruff cutter, these would be quite difficult to set up for milling on the lathe as the OP wants

Edited By JasonB on 17/07/2016 13:11:42

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