Common endmill shanks & roughing endmills

[benmychree]

You mention 1/2 or 3/4 shanks; 5/8 shank size is also standard. I can't comment on your particular machine's capabilities, and not familiar with it.

 

[umahunter]

Have you thought of trying one of those high helix endmills designed for aluminum

 

[umahunter]

I picked up a pair of 3/8 high helix endmills on ebay for 15 bucks and while I haven't used them a ton from what I have they work pretty good

 

[chris.trotter]

I saw them in the catalogue, but figured I'd start simple. Good to know!

The next set I wouldn't mind getting is a ball-end endmill and outer rounding bit, for inner and outer radiusing.

 

[f350ca]

You might be better going with straight R8 collets than a collet chuck. Just buy the sizes you need, say 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2.
https://www.busybeetools.com/products/collet-1-2in-r8.html
These use up less vertical space and being shorter they're more ridged.

Greg

 

[chris.trotter]

That's a great point. Already bought the endmill holder, though. In future will keep that in mind.

 

[chris.trotter]

Update on this, for future googlers. The 3/8 4-flute roughing endmill will take 0.125cm horizontal facing cuts in mild steel quite nicely (using motor oil as lubricant/coolant) - feed rate of "slow" and spindle RPM of "just past half".

At the same feed/spindle speeds, I can take ~3/8" deep vertical facing cuts of 0.050cm without issue, although you'd definitely want a cleanup pass with a normal endmill (not awful finish, but for sure needs a cleanup pass).

Haven't tried the 2-flute roughing endmill yet.