I started out on a Taiwanese Harbor Freight round column mill / drill. It was my first machine tool purchase. Rigidity was always an issue. Any time I had to remove a lot of steel I really hated it. I'd wear out the bottom 0.1" of the endmill pretty quickly and it gets expensive.
My first indexible endmill was a TPG322 2 flute. My God did it shake that mill. It was loud and angry...it really sounded like it was destroying my poor mill. I was still limited to destroying a tiny part of the inserts.
I decided to try some high end tooling I found at a local tool supply. I bought a 3/4" Seco nano turbo endmill and my first 1.5" micro turbo face mill. The mill honestly didn't have the rigidity to take advantage of these tools. The facemill still hammered my poor mill to death. Loud and angry is all it was.
About a year ago I finally bought a Precision Matthew's 835S. Not the heaviest machine but a ton better than my mill drill.
I decided to try a Shars 1.5" APKT face mill that I saw on YouTube. I'm not sure what I expected but it was loud and angry too. It cut okay but I hated the pounding. The finish was nothing I considered good.
I even tried a Shars TPG322 1.75" facemill that had some rake angle built in. It was a small improvement over the APKT but only because of the tiny contact area on each cutter so there was less impact.
It wasn't until a guy on Facebook recommended the SEHT1204 insert face mills that I finally found what I was looking for. I bought a Shars 2" face mill to try out and some Lamnia inserts from China. The 45° lead angle and the 20° rake really dramatically reduced the impact and quieted the cut. The wiper inserts make a really impressive finish on my light mill. Taking 0.1" depth at 20 ipm is not problem for hogging. I am really only limited by the hp of the head.
I was so impressed I just bought a Delfer 80mm face mill and tried it the first time today. I really didn't think my mill would like a 3" wide facemill.
This was a 0.050" depth of cut at 14 ipm. Mystery steel.
That was a lot of words just to say I've tried a bunch of face mills and the SEHT / SEKT 45° lead facemills have truly been the most impressive. If I need to remove a lot of steel I will no longer dread the brute force and noise.
The APKT still has a place to cut up to a shoulder but I don't like using it much at all. It still works extremely well in aluminum so there is that.....
The TPG322 endmills seem to do fine on light milling and slow feeds. I'll still use them on occasion.
If you are just starting out check out the 45° lead face mills and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
My first indexible endmill was a TPG322 2 flute. My God did it shake that mill. It was loud and angry...it really sounded like it was destroying my poor mill. I was still limited to destroying a tiny part of the inserts.
I decided to try some high end tooling I found at a local tool supply. I bought a 3/4" Seco nano turbo endmill and my first 1.5" micro turbo face mill. The mill honestly didn't have the rigidity to take advantage of these tools. The facemill still hammered my poor mill to death. Loud and angry is all it was.
About a year ago I finally bought a Precision Matthew's 835S. Not the heaviest machine but a ton better than my mill drill.
I decided to try a Shars 1.5" APKT face mill that I saw on YouTube. I'm not sure what I expected but it was loud and angry too. It cut okay but I hated the pounding. The finish was nothing I considered good.
I even tried a Shars TPG322 1.75" facemill that had some rake angle built in. It was a small improvement over the APKT but only because of the tiny contact area on each cutter so there was less impact.
It wasn't until a guy on Facebook recommended the SEHT1204 insert face mills that I finally found what I was looking for. I bought a Shars 2" face mill to try out and some Lamnia inserts from China. The 45° lead angle and the 20° rake really dramatically reduced the impact and quieted the cut. The wiper inserts make a really impressive finish on my light mill. Taking 0.1" depth at 20 ipm is not problem for hogging. I am really only limited by the hp of the head.
I was so impressed I just bought a Delfer 80mm face mill and tried it the first time today. I really didn't think my mill would like a 3" wide facemill.
This was a 0.050" depth of cut at 14 ipm. Mystery steel.
That was a lot of words just to say I've tried a bunch of face mills and the SEHT / SEKT 45° lead facemills have truly been the most impressive. If I need to remove a lot of steel I will no longer dread the brute force and noise.
The APKT still has a place to cut up to a shoulder but I don't like using it much at all. It still works extremely well in aluminum so there is that.....
The TPG322 endmills seem to do fine on light milling and slow feeds. I'll still use them on occasion.
If you are just starting out check out the 45° lead face mills and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
