end mill sharpening

That's what I call simple and it gets you by if you do not need to sharpen the flutes...Thanks for the video..John
 
Many years ago,when I had no other way of sharpening end mills or horizontal mill cutters,I rigged up a way to do them in my Atlas 12" lathe. I had a Tom Thumb model Dumore tool post grinder(no great shakes!). I rigged up a finger to rest the flutes on,and with the tool post grinder in the compound,I was able to grind end mills by carefully moving the carriage sideways,while the finger under the end mill pushed the spiral flute upwards as it was ground. With the spindle as light as it was in the Atlas lathe,with the belt slacked off,I was able to effectively and accurately sharpen my cutters. The lathe was covered up,of course,while grinding.

If you ever see a Tom Thumb tool post grinder for sale,do not buy it. They have bronze bearings,and I never got mine to do a good job of grinding shafts. (It sharpened cutters o.k..) There were other factors,of course,and the lathe was too light as well. Now I have a Themac,which I consider one of the best tool post grinders out there. It does a great job.
 
Don B said:
The grinding fixture in these plans do allow you to sharpen the sides of the end mill, it's a simple design but well worth looking into.

Don
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Another Harold Hall book of note is Tool and Cutter Sharpening (Workshop Practice Series #38) where he has an alternate set of plans for a less complicated grinding rest than terrywerm and Don refer to. That book also covers sharpening pretty much anything we'd use in a home shop including wood tools like chisels and plane blades. That said, I have the more complicated version on my 'to-do' list because it seems like a more useful tool when you figure out how to use it. Mr. Hall covers a wide variety of accessories for these rests as well.

-Ryan
 
Don B said:
Great stuff...! your getting the job done with with what you had at hand, thank you very much for posting that.:))
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Your very welcome. Glad you could get something out of it.
 
terrywerm said:
You might want to get a copy of the book "Milling. A Complete Course" by Harold Hall. It is part of the 'Workshop Series' and is available on Amazon and a few other places. In that book he has plans for a sharpening system that will allow you to sharpen your own end mills. I don't know if it allows sharpening only the ends, or if it sharpens the sides too. His dimensions are all metric, but converting them over isn't too bad if you need to do that. I do not yet have a copy myself, but it is on my list of books to get.[/Q


I got the book MILLING A COMPLETE COURSE by HEAROLD HALL today and it covers a good deal of info for the start up machinist. lots of ideas I will use. thanks terrywerm....John
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Also, I messed up and gashed the end of my endmill today on the dremel sharpener trying something new. Usually I use the side of the cutoff wheel (not meant to be used for usual cutting operations) but I used the front of the wheel (actual supposed cutting surface) and made a gouge in the end. So I went over to the grinder to try and freehand it. A bit tricky but once you get the trick of it it's not hard. It worked well. Not for precise milling, (I'd use a new endmill for more precise work) but for roughing it left an acceptable finish.

Should I do a video on freehand sharpening of endmills (and reamers?)
 
I just bought an arc eurotrade EMG-12 end mill sharpener, not cheap, but I get my HSS end mills second hand on ebay, and it does a good job, even with ones previously hand sharpened, it doesnt do the side flutes, just the ends, and it certainly isnt cheap, but I managed to get a complete one on ebay under £500, I know I could buy a lot of end mills for that money, but now I can keep resharpening the ones I have and am always guaranteed a good sharp tool.
 
I was using mine last night, to sharpen a bunch of end mills that I had bought off ebay that had arrived the day before, I got about 25 of the 37 I had bought sharpened in the space of about an hour, this machine is so simple to set up and use, requiring no special skill to set the mill in the correct place for the specially shaped grinding disc that comes with all the specific features pre located for the machne, you set the mill height in the collar using a depth stop, then flip it over and set the collar in the holder using a guide to get the edge orientation correct to the holder then just insert the holder into 3 preset holes, turning it once for 2 flute, twice for 3 flute and 3 times for 4 flute in each hole, the holder being especially machined to fit just one way on the hole per flute, and thats it done, all your teeth are the same depth and all sharp.
 
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