Fleece said when the part came off the lathe, “Everything was concentric and perpendicular, because it was all made at once.” Manual finishing included minimal deburring and treatment with Scotch-Brite pads to clean the fins.

Doiron said that Emuge customer SB Dezigns, North-East, Md., had encountered long cycle times milling stainless steel shifter parts for the racing industry. Successfully implementing TOP-Cut VAR End Mills together with an Emuge FPC Milling Chuck saved 62 percent in costs. Before this, SB Dezigns was using a couple of different brand end mills and was not optimizing the milling process. Billy Crabtree, owner and CEO of SB Dezigns said, “With the Emuge end mills and holder combination, we are able to save over 30 hours of machining time and more than $5,000 for every 500 shifter parts we manufacture.”

Iscar’s solid carbide end mills are available with a combination of substrates and coatings. For example, “A general-purpose end mill with a sub-micron grain structure offers good wear resistance as well as high toughness and some forgiveness with the tool. On the other hand, an ultra-fine grain structure offers more wear resistance for hardened steels or carbon fiber reinforced plastics.”

Machining grooves and shallow channels. Example: grooving ball-bearing raceways. Typically performed by tools that are capable of light cuts at high feed rates. Imparts high-quality finish.

“There’s also growing demand for products that can do more with one tool,” said Strauchen. “Our HurrimillAT4 four-flute multifunctional end mill is what we call an all-terrain type of tool for drilling and ramping, tool counterboring, high-speed machining and conventional slotting/roughing. Job shops can do more with one tool in the spindle that does several operations and is extremely forgiving. It’s a drill and end mill in one tool with a brand-new FX7 PVD coating that makes it well suited to doing slotting and profiling, ramping, plunging, high-speed milling and roughing and finishing.”

Uncoated tools do not feature supportive treatments on the cutting edge. They are used at reduced speeds for general applications on nonferrous metals.

Emuge-Franken USA, with headquarters in West Boylston, Mass., offers end mill applications expertise and solutions, supporting machining difficult materials.

Ceratizit’s products include rods and preforms for solid carbide tools as well as carbide components for applications such as the medical industry. Products not covered by the standard range are developed by Ceratizit’s carbide experts on an individual basis and in close collaboration with the tool manufacturers.

Step that prepares a slug, blank or other workpiece for machining or other processing by separating it from the original stock. Performed on lathes, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and other turning machines. Also performed on milling machines, machining centers with slitting saws and sawing machines with cold (circular) saws, hacksaws, bandsaws or abrasive cutoff saws. See saw, sawing machine; turning.

“Tooling choices range from special solid-carbide grades for taking lighter cuts on hardened steel for mold and die parts to geometries, coatings, edge prep and surface prep that are more suitable for softer materials like titanium. Everything depends on the customer’s application,” said Bruhis, who develops tools for aerospace, power generation and medical industry as well as automotive. “Most of the round tools that you see in the market today are carbide tools because of the introduction of new machine technology which can run so much faster and is steady. However, YG-1 is one of the very few companies left manufacturing HSS cobalt tools. These are required for older machines and for large diameters, inch and-a-quarter and larger tools,” Bruhis said.

“Our customers face many day-to-day challenges regarding tooling. They include the need to maximize tool life, maximize productivity and reduce downtime,” said William Fiorenza, product manager, mold and die. “We address these three challenges by working closely with customers, learning about their applications and gaining a thorough understanding about cutting conditions, machining capabilities and equipment limitations. The next step is to provide tooling recommendations that align with the application.”

The NanoFeed 20o cutting edge offers a 3× feed rate multiplier. The insert side walls are back drafted slightly to provide extra side wall chip clearance. The maximum DOC is 0.5 mm for the 8 mm insert and 0.3 mm for the 6 mm. NanoFeed is currently available in hard milling grade IN2504.

Kuhnle credits Ceratizit’s new Dragonskin coating process and the way the company preps its end mills with producing an extremely hard and durable coating. “What we do prior to coating and after coating makes the difference. We prep the end mill before coating and after by polishing the end mills to produce better adhesion and durability.”

Once boring was completed, Fleece inserted a 0.001 "-undersize plug into the bore and pushed it against the chuck with an arbor on a center clamped in the machine’s tailstock. That enhanced rigidity for subsequent operations. “It almost became like a solid piece again,” Fleece said.

Workholding device that affixes to a mill, lathe or drill-press spindle. It holds a tool or workpiece by one end, allowing it to be rotated. May also be fitted to the machine table to hold a workpiece. Two or more adjustable jaws actually hold the tool or part. May be actuated manually, pneumatically, hydraulically or electrically. See collet.

Shaft used for rotary support in machining applications. In grinding, the spindle for mounting the wheel; in milling and other cutting operations, the shaft for mounting the cutter.

When R.E.F. Precision Products manufactured this 8 "-long, 35⁄8 "-dia., 6061 aluminum heat sink for a computer-chip-making machine, it consolidated critical machining steps on one CNC lathe to assure concentricity of the part’s ID and OD. Image courtesy of R.E.F. Precision.

In addition to handling prototype and production machining, R.E.F. Precision Products LLC, Deer Park, N.Y., provides engineering and productivity consulting services. “You give me what you are looking for, and I’ll engineer it to make it as cost competitive as possible,” said Co-owner Rob Fleece, whose background is in mechanical engineering. In some cases, R.E.F. Precision’s engineering expertise not only helps controls costs, but enables the shop to make difficult-to-machine parts.

GWS offers custom brazed ceramic to carbide end mills for machining heat-resistant superalloys and 5-7FL coated carbide end mills with material-specific geometry and specific edge preps for machining titanium. For non-ferrous applications, Strauchen said that PCD tooling is one of the hottest areas of growth, where brazed PCD inserts and PCD monoblock tools are being utilized for aluminum castings and eight-facet PCD drills for processing aerospace composites for aircraft skins and wing spars.

Products include solid carbide standard milling cutters and HPC milling cutters for applications in a broad customer base including aerospace, automotive, medical and the firearms industry. “Material-specific tools are designed for difficult-to-machine materials, high-temperature alloys, nickel-based alloys and pH stainless steel, along with a lot of 17-4, 13-8, 15-5,” said Kuhnle.

“We recently worked with a customer to improve tool life and decrease part cycle time when milling 400 stainless steel parts with a hardness of 40 Rc,” said Doiron. “After reviewing their application and current end mills, we recommended TiNox Trochoidal end mills, and were able to cut cycle time in half from two hours to one hour and increase tool life by 5×.” In addition, Doiron reported the new solution saved 88 percent in job costs because even though, for example, the Emuge solution has a higher cost-per-tool, only 16 Emuge-Franken end mills are required as compared with 200 of the original tools.

Turning machine capable of sawing, milling, grinding, gear-cutting, drilling, reaming, boring, threading, facing, chamfering, grooving, knurling, spinning, parting, necking, taper-cutting, and cam- and eccentric-cutting, as well as step- and straight-turning. Comes in a variety of forms, ranging from manual to semiautomatic to fully automatic, with major types being engine lathes, turning and contouring lathes, turret lathes and numerical-control lathes. The engine lathe consists of a headstock and spindle, tailstock, bed, carriage (complete with apron) and cross slides. Features include gear- (speed) and feed-selector levers, toolpost, compound rest, lead screw and reversing lead screw, threading dial and rapid-traverse lever. Special lathe types include through-the-spindle, camshaft and crankshaft, brake drum and rotor, spinning and gun-barrel machines. Toolroom and bench lathes are used for precision work; the former for tool-and-die work and similar tasks, the latter for small workpieces (instruments, watches), normally without a power feed. Models are typically designated according to their “swing,” or the largest-diameter workpiece that can be rotated; bed length, or the distance between centers; and horsepower generated. See turning machine.

Titanium Aluminum Nitride (TiAlN) has a higher hardness and oxidation temperature versus Titanium Nitride (TiN) and Titanium Carbonitride (TiCN). Ideal for stainless steel, high alloy carbon steels, nickel-based high-temperature alloys and titanium alloys. Again, use caution in nonferrous material because of a tendency to gall. It also requires an increase of 75 to 100 percent in machining speeds vs. uncoated tools.

According to Emuge-Franken, TOP-Cut VAR end mills feature unique flute and profile geometries optimized for long tool life and superior performance in both roughing and finishing applications. Variable helix angle flutes provide extensive vibration dampening and are precision ground with advanced edge preparation to maximize chip evacuation. A small chamfer feature protects cutting edges to prevent chipping of the face geometry. Bull nose end mills have fully blended corner radii to extend tool life, while providing improved surface finishes.

TiNox-Cut End Mills, for example, are designed for high-performance machining of demanding materials such as Inconel/nickel alloys, titanium and stainless steel. The end mills are made from premium ultra-fine micro grain solid carbide with a maximized transverse rupture strength for high-impact applications, producing impressive results compared to conventional end mills, according to Emuge-Franken USA’s Dan Doiron, milling products manager. “Advanced PVD-applied multi-layered coatings withstand excessive heat and provide superb wear resistance for longer tool life. Tool geometry is designed to produce minimal vibration when machining tough materials,” he said.

The NanoFeed high-feed milling line is available in eight cutter bodies, four steel and four brazed solid carbide versions that offer extra rigidity. NanoFeed features a 20o lead angle, high feed single-blade design that uses pressed-in coolant channels to precisely deliver air or coolant to the cutting edge.

Designed for trochoidal milling via the overlapping movement of circular paths, these tools can rough and finish mill over 30 percent faster than standard designs, while increasing tool life significantly, the company said.Designed for virtually all materials and applications, Emuge-Franken’s TOP-Cut VAR High Performance variable-helix carbide end mills feature geometry and coating that make them equally effective in multiple job shop applications as well as challenging production cutting operations.

Enlarging a hole that already has been drilled or cored. Generally, it is an operation of truing the previously drilled hole with a single-point, lathe-type tool. Boring is essentially internal turning, in that usually a single-point cutting tool forms the internal shape. Some tools are available with two cutting edges to balance cutting forces.

Ingersoll’s new line of five-, six- and seven-flute solid-carbide variable pitch RhinoRound end mills are designed for semi-finish, finish and high-efficiency machining applications where more flutes provide greater productivity. These tools excel in higher-hardness materials 28 HRc and above, including steels, stainless steels, cast irons and high-temperature alloys.

Space provided behind a tool’s land or relief to prevent rubbing and subsequent premature deterioration of the tool. See land; relief.

“High-speed machining allows end-users to take very light cuts that can eliminate heat and edge chipping of the tool. As a result, tools last longer and the workpiece doesn’t suffer from heat damage or distortion. Sometimes, you can’t do that because you don’t have the right machine or the right part or the right program. My challenge is to constantly fit the tool to the machine technology,” said Bruhis.

After the fins were completed, Fleece backed off the machine’s center, removed the plug and applied the grooving tool to cut off the part. For that operation, he ran the tool at the same 0.006-ipr feed rate but at a 150-sfm cutting speed to minimize vibration and impart a fine surface finish.

The answers for GWS’s aerospace customers are usually developed for structural components for commercial and defense aircraft featuring aluminum, titanium and composites, as well as tools for heat-resistant alloys for the hot engine side. Material focus in the automotive industry includes high-silicon aluminum, ductile cast iron and compacted graphite iron (CGI). The materials are fundamental in the auto industries transition to lighter weight materials. The medical sector tooling solutions include stainless steel, titanium and cobalt chrome for implants such as bone screws and knee joints.

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GWS Tool Group, Tavares, Fla., is a vertically integrated manufacturer of highly engineered custom, standard, and modified standard cutting tools including end mills. End mills range from general purpose to application-specific or material-specific, according to Drew Strauchen, executive vice president. “Often custom tooling solutions result from standard tools that have been tailored and tweaked to the customer’s application. To find the best tooling solution, we drill down into the customer’s application information: what’s the material? The shape of the part? What’s the final objective? Longer tool life? Faster cycle times? What finish is required?”

“Ceratizit’s multi-application grade AlTiN-based coating is applied to tools that are used for difficult-to-machine materials like hardened steels, alloy steel and superalloys. The Dragonskin DPB60S coating technology makes the surface particularly smooth, which improves chip removal and reduces adhesion for cutting hardened steels, alloy steels and superalloys. The Dragonskin DPB72S is designed more for difficult-to-machine stainless and heat-resistant alloys,” said Kuhnle.

Emphasizing the importance of coatings, Kuhnle said that about 95 percent of the carbide tool cutting edges are coated these days. “The increase in surface hardness boosts the wear resistance of the tool and reduces slide resistance during chip removal. Ultra-smooth surfaces limit the propensity for weld buildup and built-up edge formation, and the insulating effect of the layer increases the elevated-temperature hardness. Significantly longer tool lives are achieved as a result,” Kunhle said.

Workpiece is held in a chuck, mounted on a face plate or secured between centers and rotated while a cutting tool, normally a single-point tool, is fed into it along its periphery or across its end or face. Takes the form of straight turning (cutting along the periphery of the workpiece); taper turning (creating a taper); step turning (turning different-size diameters on the same work); chamfering (beveling an edge or shoulder); facing (cutting on an end); turning threads (usually external but can be internal); roughing (high-volume metal removal); and finishing (final light cuts). Performed on lathes, turning centers, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and similar machines.

Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.

The Alu-Power family of aluminum machining end mills includes the Alu-Power HPC for high-speed machining, the Alu-Power two- and three-flute end mills for general machining of aluminum and the Alu-Power HPC chip breaker roughers for roughing aluminum and nonferrous materials.

Ceratizit is a supplier of tools to the demanding firearms industry, where improved geometry and coatings have produced 30 percent increase in feeds and speeds in machining stainless, according to Kuhnle. “For an aerospace application, we recently improved 3D machining of a 416 stainless impeller blade by 25 percent, and reduced costs by 17 percent,” he said.

As a result, Fleece devised a process that produced all critical dimensions in one chucking. He began with 3.75 "-dia., 1 "-thick-wall tubing. The tubing was cut 1 " longer than the finished part, so “I had something to hold onto,” he said. He clamped one end of the tubing in a chuck on a Hitachi Seiki CNC lathe and faced the other end with a Sandvik Coromant grade-1025, CNMGP 431 coated carbide insert.

He plunged the tool straight in at 400 sfm and 0.005 ipr to a depth of 0.200 " for all 36 fins, returned for another 0.200 "-deep pass for every one and finished each fin with a 0.060 "-DOC final pass. When trying to cut a fin in a single pass, Fleece said the 0.030 "-thick walls started to push away, so he machined them in steps. Initially, Fleece reground the insert once or twice to get the proper clearance, and “once we got the insert perfect it just worked.” R.E.F. ran 100-part batches, and one cutoff insert typically would last for an entire run.

Ingersoll Cutting Tools, Rockford, Ill., offers a wide range of end mill tooling options, including both solid carbide 90o ball nose, bull nose and hi-feed types as well as indexable end mills in modular and integral shank styles. Ingersoll’s broad offering of end mill products allows its customers to select from many tooling geometries engineered for optimal performance in various cutting conditions and applications.

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Essentially a cantilever beam that holds one or more cutting tools in position during a boring operation. Can be held stationary and moved axially while the workpiece revolves around it, or revolved and moved axially while the workpiece is held stationary, or a combination of these actions. Installed on milling, drilling and boring machines, as well as lathes and machining centers.

Minimum and maximum amount a workpiece dimension is allowed to vary from a set standard and still be acceptable.

Dimension that defines the exterior diameter of a cylindrical or round part. See ID, inner diameter.

Iscar’s end mill designs are engineered based upon the environment that the tools are to be used in. “For example, if you are doing job-shop type work, our new FLASHSOLID end mill line offers performance at an economical price point. This new family of end mills are 100 percent made in the USA. There are up to 3,000 possible configurations, including flute count, corner radius, length of cut and overall length that can be used on most common types of materials found in a job shop,” said Clynch.

“For example, a 0.375" [9.5-mm] diameter tool milling a 0.1875" [4.76-mm] fillet radius would be size for size. This does not promote a good or optimal cutting condition,” said Fiorenza. “A better solution would be to mill that 0.1875" fillet radius with a smaller diameter tool, such as an 8-mm diameter tool which has a 4-mm radius. Doing this would allow the tool to better drive the corner radius when milling. The cutting action would be more free with less chatter,” Fiorenza explained.

Aluminum Titanium Nitride (AlTiN) is one of the most abrasive-resistant and hardest coatings. It is commonly used for machining aircraft and aerospace materials, nickel alloy, stainless steel, titanium, cast iron and carbon steel.Zirconium Nitride (ZrN) is similar to Titanium Nitride (TiN ), but has a higher oxidation temperature and resists sticking and prevents edge build up. It is commonly used on nonferrous materials including aluminum, brass, copper and titanium.

Condition of vibration involving the machine, workpiece and cutting tool. Once this condition arises, it is often self-sustaining until the problem is corrected. Chatter can be identified when lines or grooves appear at regular intervals in the workpiece. These lines or grooves are caused by the teeth of the cutter as they vibrate in and out of the workpiece and their spacing depends on the frequency of vibration.

Microprocessor-based controller dedicated to a machine tool that permits the creation or modification of parts. Programmed numerical control activates the machine’s servos and spindle drives and controls the various machining operations. See DNC, direct numerical control; NC, numerical control.

Emuge-Franken TiNox Trochoidal end mills have a combination of proprietary TiN/ TiALN coating and a chip-breaker edge that reduces stress and vibration when machining difficult materials such as stainless steel and titanium. The chip-breaker edge feature is designed to reduce the length of the chip produced to smaller segments, making chip evacuation easier, specifically in deep-pocket applications. All tools are coolant fed for maximum performance.

The part was then moved to a Bridgeport 760 vertical machining center, where it was clamped on an expanding arbor. Four 0.212 "-dia. holes, later to be fitted with press-in clinching screws, were drilled in the flange on the front of the part. Then the flange edges were squared with an endmill. Finally, the part was flipped, clamped again on the arbor and four clearance holes were drilled to accept 0.440 "-dia. screws. Milling and turning consumed 22 minutes.

Each cooling fin is 0.030 " thick and separated by 0.100 "-wide × 0.460 "-deep grooves. Fleece tried a number of tooling alternatives to create the fins and found his Seco cutoff tool worked best. He custom ground both sides of a 0.120 "-wide cutoff insert to produce a 0.100 "-wide tool.

Ingersoll has introduced four new end mill families, three indexable and one solid carbide. They include the recently introduced NanoFeed milling line; the HiPosSFeedV 05 inserts series 90o shoulder mill & high feed mills; the GoldSFeed 04 insert series high feed mills; and the new RhinoRounds solid carbide end mill line. The three indexable insert product lines follow the trend toward offering indexable-style tools in smaller diameters, which range from 0.236" (6 mm) to 1.25" (31.75 mm). This is achieved by using smaller IC size inserts (4, 5, 6 and 8 mm). These smaller inserts allow for higher-density indexable cutter options, Fiorenza explained.

Titanium Carbonitride (TiCN) is harder and more wear resistant than Titanium Nitride (TiN). It is commonly used on stainless steel, cast iron and aluminum alloys. TiCN can provide the ability to run applications at higher spindle speeds. Use caution on nonferrous materials because of a tendency to gall. It requires an increase of 75–100 percent in machining speeds vs. uncoated tools.

R.E.F. Precision’s customer attempted to make prototypes of the heat sink, but six out of 10 failed leak testing at 1,200 psi. According to Fleece, the problem was in the customer’s machining process, in which chucking and rechucking the part diminished its ability to maintain concentricity.

Next, the CNMGP insert roughed and finished the part’s OD to 3.380 ", up to a shoulder at the part’s chuck end. “With the positive-rake insert, I was able to get a really nice finish,” Fleece said. Then he cut a 2.030 "-dia., 1.312 "-wide groove at the front of the part with an ¼ "-wide Allied Machine deep-grooving tool.

The finished heat sink has an S-shaped connecting tube welded near its base. R.E.F. Precision turned a simple bushing-shaped part to be welded in the middle of the “S” between two pieces of tubing. R.E.F. Precision also engineered a fixture that positioned the tubing parts, bushing and heat sink for welding, which was outsourced. CTE

News items authored by Cutting Tool Engineering have been written or edited by the editors of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine. The reports represent material submitted to CTE by outside authors, and edited by CTE editors for style and accuracy.

Strauchen said that a lot of GWS standard tools, like those for machining titanium, started out as custom solutions. “A high-feed line of titanium end mills was developed as a custom tool first. We had such a great success with it so that we created a standard tool portfolio,” he said. “We had to work with customers to reprogram toolpaths because that type of tool can be very effective with the right toolpath. The High Feed end mill is designed for Z-level machining in five-axis machining.”

Tangential velocity on the surface of the tool or workpiece at the cutting interface. The formula for cutting speed (sfm) is tool diameter 5 0.26 5 spindle speed (rpm). The formula for feed per tooth (fpt) is table feed (ipm)/number of flutes/spindle speed (rpm). The formula for spindle speed (rpm) is cutting speed (sfm) 5 3.82/tool diameter. The formula for table feed (ipm) is feed per tooth (ftp) 5 number of tool flutes 5 spindle speed (rpm).

CNC machine tool capable of drilling, reaming, tapping, milling and boring. Normally comes with an automatic toolchanger. See automatic toolchanger.

Strauchen said that GWS’s Alumigator ASR5 five-flute coolant-fed super rougher is capable of high-speed roughing and finishing aluminum with high-speed 18,000–20,000 rpm machines. “With a high-speed, high-horsepower CNC we can achieve over 1,000 ipm and over 200 in3 metal removal rate.”

Iscar offers four different types of coatings that are standard on its end mills. They include 9 series AlTiN (better without coolant); 3 series TiCN (better with coolant); 6 and 7 series (AlTiCrSiN) for more wear resistance to abrasiveness.

“When you are talking about Tier One companies like Boeing and Airbus or GE Aviation for engines, products need to be certified through a lengthy process of testing. For one tool for a specific engine, it took two years to approve the tool. It involved a lot of testing, at various cutting conditions and tool life. Once the tool is certified for that part, it will not be changed easily. There would have to be some quality issue or failure of the part or some pricing change to justify new testing. For medical certification with the FDA, the same is true. It’s almost impossible to change tooling,” said Bruhis.

For more information about R.E.F. Precision Products LLC, call (631) 242-4471 or visit www.refprecisionproducts.com.

Iscar USA, Arlington, Texas, provides solid carbide end mills designed to meet its customer’s requirements. For example, customers are concerned with three primary drivers in analyzing the overall cost to produce a part. Machining costs (productivity), tooling costs (cost per edge) and tool change cost (tool life), are prioritized based on the customers goal, according to Matt Clynch, national product specialist—milling. “With the design software and advanced grinding machine and software technology that is available today, we are able to tailor precision end mills for the most complex applications. Miniature facets can be applied to cutting edges for titanium or flutes tailored to ejecting stainless steel chips.”

Then he bored the ID to a 0.001 "/ -0.000 " tolerance with a Kennametal grade-KC5010, coated carbide insert held in a 1 "-dia., solid-carbide boring bar. Because the bore went to the back of the part and thereby might amplify tool vibration, Fleece ran the tool at a relatively low 750 rpm and took three passes, with the first two at a 0.012-ipr feed rate. The feed had to be heavy enough, he said, to produce enough force to minimize chatter. The last pass, at a 0.020 " DOC, produced a 0.001 "-undersize bore. The boring tool ran at 0.006 ipr. The lighter feed was acceptable for the last pass, “because I was going to hone it to final size and I wasn’t as concerned about the finish,” Fleece said. The bore’s final ID is 1.912 ".

Machining operations include milling, holemaking, drilling and reaming, profiling, contouring and multifunction processing with combination tools. The best solutions depend on the careful attention to selection of indexable or solid carbide, geometry, cutting tool material, coatings and edge prep among others. Here’s a selection of the product and echnology choices available from leading end mill tooling manufacturers.

“Our customers are focused on cycle time and throughput. They know that the most costly expense they have is time. We are focused on saving cycle time through faster metal removal rates, reducing cost per part via longer tool life and reducing tool changes by creating custom solutions that combine multiple tools into one—e.g., step drill with countersink does three operations.”

Milling cutter held by its shank that cuts on its periphery and, if so configured, on its free end. Takes a variety of shapes (single- and double-end, roughing, ballnose and cup-end) and sizes (stub, medium, long and extra-long). Also comes with differing numbers of flutes.

Iscar’s Multi-Master solid carbide end-of-tool offers the best of both worlds, according to Clynch. Multi-Master is a solid carbide threaded head or tip that screws into a shank that can be carbide, steel, or heavy metal. “It doesn’t have the length-of-cut of other solid carbide end mills. Its range is limited to 0.75 to 1.5×D on flute length. We can’t achieve the great depth of cut (2×D and greater) of solid carbide end mills, but it allows us to do fast feed end milling, corner rounding tools, spot drilling, center drilling, slotting, grooving cutters, [or] engravers—all being solid carbide. There are as many as 52,000 different combinations of heads and shanks considering all the shank choices to reduce tool change out time.”

Among its recent product offerings, YG-1 has started manufacturing ceramic end mills for Inconel and Waspaloy aerospace engine applications. YG also manufactures a high-performance solid carbide end mill, its V7PlusA end mill with four and six flutes and with a wide choice of flute lengths and corner radii. It is designed for high-performance machining of stainless and titanium. YG-1 has designed a new solid carbide end mill called the TitaNox-Power HPC, with five flutes for titanium alloys, stainless steels and Inconel machining.

The variable pitch design reduces vibration when multiple flutes are engaged in the workpiece and provides a combination of reduced cutting forces and excellent chip evacuation, according to Ingersoll. The RhinoRound RE1 and REB series tools are available with flute length and corner radii options. The five- and six-flute tools are also available as ball nose tools. Each tool features an eccentric grind which performs very well in moderately hard materials, and all are made with a submicron substrate for good toughness and wear resistance. All RhinoRounds are provided in IN2205 grade which is a nano-layered PVD-TiAlCN featuring a unique powder blue color.

He noted that coated end mills are especially effective for aerospace applications where tool life, tool cost and reducing the number of tool changes are the manufacturer’s main challenges. “With our P007 geometry and P556 geometry, our four-flute variable helix end mill reduces vibrations, resulting in longer tool life and better finishes,” he said.

Ceratizit’s $10 million investment in its Sacramento, Calif., end mill manufacturing plant with 111 CNC machines has made it one of the largest end mill manufacturers in the U.S. “Products made in the plant include solid carbide tools ranging from 0.005" [0.127 mm] ball nose end mills to inch and a quarter solid carbide end mills 8" [203.2 mm] long, as well as specials,” Kuhnle said.

According to Yair Bruhis, YG-1 Tool Co. is one of the world’s largest consumers of high-speed steel (HSS) and one of the top three consumers of cemented carbide raw materials. YG-1, with U.S. headquarters in Vernon Hills, Ill., produces around 3 million to 4 million solid carbide end mills per month in 10 grades of carbide in its manufacturing facilities which are spread out in South Korea, U.S., Mexico, Turkey and Germany.

Cylindrical sleeve, typically made from high-grade tool steel, inserted into a jig fixture to guide cutting tools. There are three main types: renewable, used in liners that in turn are installed in the jig; press-fit, installed directly in the jig for short production runs; and liner (or master), installed permanently in a jig to receive renewable bushing.

All TOP-Cut VAR end mills have an advanced ALCR PVD coating for outstanding performance and extended life in higher operating temperatures. A proprietary sub-micro grain carbide provides maximum abrasion resistance and durability.

One example was an 8 "-long, 3⅝ "-dia., 6061 aluminum heat sink for a machine that makes computer chips. To permit rapid heat transfer, the part has 36 delicate cooling fins and interior walls as thin as 0.020 ". Because of the thin walls, concentricity between the part’s ID and OD was crucial. “If you don’t have dead concentricity, sometimes you’ll get a leak and a bad part,” Fleece said.

“Most of the end mills that we manufacture are standard products from catalog, but we also manufacture special tools for specific applications and materials,” said Bruhis. YG-1 uses various types of tooling materials, carbide, ceramic and High Speed (HSS) and powder metal (PM).

“For application-specific environments, we offer high-performance Chatter Free end mills for high-production applications or shops that specialize in difficult-to-machine materials like Inconel, titanium or stainless steel. Solid carbide end mills that are designed for stainless steels, heat-resistant super alloys, or hardened materials up to 63 HRc are able to drive the cost per unit down while giving a shop the balance of tool life or productivity needed,” Clynch explained. “In those manufacturing environments, savings of a second and/or minutes can really add up to huge [cost] savings.”

Ceratizit USA Inc., Warren, Mich., is a fully integrated manufacturer of carbide tools that controls consistency of its products from the ground up to fully finished tooling, according to Steve Kuhnle, regional sales manager. “We manage the entire production process of cemented carbide and cemented carbide components from powder preparation to forming, sintering, finishing and surface treatment,” said Kuhnle.

Titanium Nitride (TiN) is a general-purpose coating that provides high lubricity and increases chip flow in softer materials. The heat and hardness resistance allows the tool to run at higher speeds of 25 percent to 30 percent in machining speeds vs. uncoated tools.

End mills are designed to help shops of all sizes maximize tool life and productivity and reduce downtime whether hogging out large amounts of material or producing fine surface finishes on materials as diverse as hardened steel for mold and die, heat-resistant superalloys for aerospace, titanium and Inconel for medical applications.

“Very common fillet radius sizes used by designers when designing parts are 0.125, 0.250 and 0.375" [3.175, 6.35, 9.5 mm.] Indexable insert style mills with smaller IC sizes such as the NanoFeed 6 mm and 8 mm can be extremely helpful. When milling a fillet radius that is in the same axis as the tool, a size-for-size cutting condition can exist if the cutter radii and part fillet radii are the same.