Smallish face mill

[rwm]

Interesting to see about the Shars face mill. I guess you could remove all the inserts but one and have a fly cutter!

 

[Illinoyance]

I have a Shars face mill 3" dia. that uses SEHT inserts. I am very happy with it. Mine has an integral R8 shank. I don't know if it is available with a 1/2"hole. The smallest they sell with that insert is a 2" with 4 inserts and 3/4" center hole.

I have an unknown brand from ebay that is 1 1/2"diameter and 1/2" center hole that takes APKT inserts. It is a great tool.

 

[matthewsx]

I have a 1.5" HSS shell mill if you are interested.

Always interested in more tooling, shoot me a pm with specifics.

John

 

[Illinoyance]

Always interested in more tooling, shoot me a pm with specifics.

John

I will get a photo over the weekend. What is the slowest speed on your mill? It may be to high for HSS at 1.5" dia.

 

[matthewsx]

8 spindle speeds from 180 to 3000 rpm

 

[Firebrick43]

My book is about lathe tooling, not indexable milling cutters. Sorry.

One of the things I like best about the Haas indexable tooling is that they are very clear what material the insert is best suited for. Most of the other insert manufacturers assign a cryptic and proprietary grading code that is only helpful in understand what materials it will work well with if you have their 4" thick tooling catalog.

For instance.

View attachment 393126

Are you a haas reseller or something????

Haas is not making their tool bodies nor inserts. There is nothing special compared to anyone elses insert/shape, And their P M K N symbols are the exact same as every one else uses??? Every kennemetal, mitsubishi, sumitomo, iscar, sandvik, and lovejoy insert box I have has P M K or N on it.

Second, while the OP picked probably the best face mill insert style he could for the machine, its still to big for it. I would be dubious with .400 depth of cuts on steel.

If you do have issues drop a few inserts and slow the feed down. Even a single insert acts as a nicely balanced fly cutter.

Many of the used cutters out there are beat to hell and new imports have questionable pockets, both leading to uneven insert height and the resulting surface finish.

 

[davidpbest]

Are you a haas reseller or something????

Haas is not making their tool bodies nor inserts. There is nothing special compared to anyone elses insert/shape, And their P M K N symbols are the exact same as every one else uses??? Every kennemetal, mitsubishi, sumitomo, iscar, sandvik, and lovejoy insert box I have has P M K or N on it.

Second, while the OP picked probably the best face mill insert style he could for the machine, its still to big for it. I would be dubious with .400 depth of cuts on steel.

If you do have issues drop a few inserts and slow the feed down. Even a single insert acts as a nicely balanced fly cutter.

Many of the used cutters out there are beat to hell and new imports have questionable pockets, both leading to uneven insert height and the resulting surface finish.

I have no affiliation with Haas. You seem offended that I would post a suggestion here. And you are incorrect that their insert shapes are "nothing special" - their inserts are proprietary to Haas, but generally have thicker and more robust geometry compared to the industry standard inserts. And I have had in-depth discussions with Haas about their tooling QC program and I'm satisfied that they are on-par with Iscar, Sandvik, et al with respect to insert pocket tolerances, as well as the durability of their inserts. I can not say the same about Shars as you can see in this video where I actually test a Shars face mill.

But like I said, I do like their face mills as do several others here who have posted about them. They are significantly less expensive than any of the top brands you mention, are exceptionally well made, and their insert identification and grading system is easier for an insert novice to navigate and make selections that will match the material they are machining. Depth of cut is always a function of both the tool and the machine being used, and I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

 

[matthewsx]

I bought the Kennametal because it appeared in good shape and their inserts are available and easy to select. It was also less than just the Haas tool without inserts and appears to be much higher quality than the generic Chinese units.

It might end up being too large but this little mill has surprised me so far with how stout it is. In any case I’ll get it setup and report back here on how it does.

John

 

[Firebrick43]

They are not proprietary. They sell them by haas part number instead of ISO standard nomenclature. That is Haas marketing, they lie. They lie about their machines and supporting them long term, and they lie about their machines spindle horse power numbers. They lie about their tooling. Their tooling is all Chinese.

Now please understand me. I am not saying Haas makes or sell junk per say. I have seen Haas machines and Haas tooling and its ok stuff. The cutter I have used from them had nothing wrong with the pockets, but the inserts were trash compared to the sandviks that replaced them eventually.

For example they talked up their 25 hp lathe to the place I used to work and sold them the lathe and a vf4 to replace two Okuma's(good machines but 1988 and 1989) the same hp for half the money.

When I was installing them I got to looking at the numbers and the hp claims they made were preposterous according to the full load amps they motor name plates had, and let alone better machine tool manufactures rate the spindles at constant rating at usable speeds and have a 150 percent rating for so many minutes in an hour. Haas just plain lied. The lathe weight half as much as the okuma as well and would squall something fierce taking half the depth of cut unless using their work around M138/M139 that varied the spindle.

They are almost as bad a shop vac companies claiming that their 110 volt vacuums have 6.5 hp.

 

[Illinoyance]

8 spindle speeds from 180 to 3000 rpm

1.5" cutter at 100 sfm would be 255 RPM so your mill could run a 1.5" tool in steel.