Endmill Basics

[@stuartsherman5975]

Thank you for the great video. I appreciate you taking out the mystery in bit types.

[@kensendelofski3761]

thank you. Just getting started in milling. at age 60. enjoyed this video.

[@kk2ak14]

Same situation

[@ninjaabcde]

I'm a young professional and I found this extremely helpful. Thank you for your work!

[@StuartdeHaro]

You're very welcome. Thanks for watching!

[@1stJaytree]

Just getting started at 56 myself in milling and appreciate the video. You have a voice like Bob Newhart. Good for narrating.

[@StuartdeHaro]

Hahaha thanks!

[@eddiekulp1241]

Sharpened many of those cutters, endmills , roughers on cutter grinders for 31 years, have fun

[@brianjacobson7820]

Hey, 32 here just got my first knee mill. Also got lucky and bought out a local tool and die shop. Came with a end mill sharpener. Do I need a surface grinder to Sharpen them? Curious about the process if you would care to explain. Id throw ya a PayPal compensation for your time. Just curious, like learning

[@mrma281]

Great explanation, simple, clear. Thanks.

[@MicahMade]

Having a hard time in machining/cnc because I started a week late. I think this video caught me up. Thank you!

[@StuartdeHaro]

You're very welcome. Good luck!

[@robinpaine161]

I've just been trying to mill a blind slot using my lathe. I was trying to plunge a non centre cutting end mill and it broke. I realised I was doing something wrong and now I know why. Very informative.

[@flewggle]

I'm a tool designer. I've been in and out of machine shops my entire life. This was a great quick video and I learned somethings I didnt know. Thanks for posting.

[@thaaiveeduchannel]

youtube.com/@thaaiveeduchannel

[@TheIamperryman]

Great info thanks. I work in PVD and see these all day long. Nice to lnow how they work

[@DudleyToolwright]

Clear and concise as always. Well done.

[@mwont]

Really awesome explanation. Thanks.

[@Mia-jp5fk]

Awesome video! just got a student job working partly as a machinist, love it.

[@StuartdeHaro]

Fantastic! Good luck with the new job. Watch how people hold workpieces and never be shy about asking questions. Thanks for watching!

[@Cusnpbzn]

Just used my first roughing end mill today. Yep, leaves a horrible finish. But, it was about .002" over what I needed so could come right back with a finish end mill same geometry. Thanks for the info!

[@bobmac9070]

Couple of things, one most ends HSS or Carbide have about a 2-3 deg dish on the end. So if your plunging and you need a “true flat bottom” you have to order them as a semi special. As for double end end mills there going away. Not many manufacturers want to make them and they just aren’t used that much anymore. As for slotting on CNC machine we very successfully have cut slots with 4 & 5 flute carbide end mills. Newer tougher grades of carbide in todays world can handle it. I worked for a major end mill company So much has changed over the past several years in end mill capabilities.

[@chrissena3050]

Great information & great delivery. Machining, I believe, is as much and art as it is a highly precise technical skill. Thank you!

[@thaaiveeduchannel]

youtube.com/@thaaiveeduchannel

[@cossiedriverrs]

I learned something, thanks! One type you didn't mention was the "right hand cut, left hand flute" end mill, which I use on thin material, where it forces the work back onto the table rather than causing it to try and ride up the flutes.

[@spiderbrandt4066]

G'day Stuart , it looks like I'm 2 years late , but here goes I'm a Fitter and Turner and I like very thing you say but for one , the first 2 flute mill , we call a Slot drill which we mostly use for cutting Keyways . keep up the good work

[@StuartdeHaro]

Yes. I've had this conversation with a few other people from around the world. It appears to be a nomenclature issue between countries, similar to the different names for parts of automobiles. Hood and bonnet, trunk and boot, etc. In the US, the catalogs list them all as endmills, just with different flute counts. What other different names do you have for machine tools where you're from? Cheers and thanks for watching!

[@spiderbrandt4066]

@@StuartdeHaro I'm in Qld Australia , we have the same names as you just the slotdrill is different , One of my favorite is a Flycutter , it can have 2 to 8 cutting tips in it , grate for large surfaces , I didn't expect to get a reply , you have made my day , thanks Stuart .

[@genegoodwin8925]

My first day operating a Cincinnati No.6 mill I made an ashtray and engraved the company's logo in the bottom of it using a ball nose cutter. You are only limited by your own imagination.

[@divco13]

Perfect explanation of ends mills, and there usage. It get's expensive darn Quick with out knowledge. I am sure this has been a big help for those at home machinist's

[@thomasherbig]

Excellent video, just like your other ones! As a sequel, could you perhaps address different cutter materials (HSS, Cobalt, Carbide), coatings (bright, TiN, TiAlN, ZrN, etc), and rough guidelines on how to pair cutters with materials?

[@StuartdeHaro]

That would be a good one. I'll put it in the queue. Thanks for the idea and for watching!

[@PppP-gc1df]

Please make on this.

[@swamihuman9395]

Great stuff! Well presented. Thx, Stuart.

[@frankbonsignore.RochesterNY]

Excellent presentation

[@donaldnaymon3270]

Great video. Great info. Thank you for sharing.

[@Tensquaremetreworkshop]

You can ramp manually too. Slowly wind in the Z axis as it traverses.

[@KIJs-gc6ux]

As a newbie, this was very informative, thanks !

[@whc5180]

What a nice introduction!! Thank you.

[@bobuk5722]

Hi Folks. An advantage of two flute end mills is that they will cut accurate width sized slots. Three sided ones will mill slots slightly wide as two teeth can be engaged on one side and only one on the other - the end mill has unbalanced cutting forces and distorts slightly. BobUK.

[@danielm.7396]

Thank you for this. I am beginner machinist, and the school I went to was for shit. This was much needed.

[@mykedindeal]

Thank you.Great tutorial👍

[@charleskutrufis9612]

Thank You, much appreciated.

[@greglaroche1753]

Great video. Thanks.

[@DV-ol7vt]

Great video! I was trying to learn about this and their is very little lnfo available. You did a excellent job.

[@FantasyWeapons]

Very useful information 👍🏻

[@MagnetOnlyMotors]

Wonderful info, thanks!

[@kevinarnold213]

informative and I am just learning tyvm sir

[@petersmith3703]

many thanks for very helpful briefing.

[@StuartdeHaro]

You're very welcome. Thanks for watching!

[@woodylakkham4169]

Very informative. Great show. Thousand thanks.

[@StuartdeHaro]

I'm glad it was helpful. Thanks for watching!

[@RobinsTools]

Very informative. Thanks for sharing!

[@MyHeap]

Great video. Thanks for sharing. Joe

[@lucywang67]

What the hardness of the product, I think your video is very professional

[@michaelstorm8578]

Very nice job.

[@rufustoad1]

Hi this was a great video for a beginner. Can you face mill with that 4 flute 1/2"?

[@chickenpimp5190]

Just getting started in milling. Thanks for the education but now I'm a little more confused than i was before watching lol. I'm milling slots in HDPE about 1" deep, 3/8" wide and around 1 1/2" long. What bit would you recommend? I can drill a pilot hole if necessary but would rather not. Finish wouldn't be all that important but i would like a smooth finish just for presentation purposes.

[@StuartdeHaro]

@@chickenpimp5190 I would do it with a 3 flute and use a vacuum cleaner to keep the chips out of the slot. Take multiple passes of maybe .100" deep each. As you get deeper, chip evacuation is going to be harder. You may consider getting a longer shanked endmill so you can still get the vacuum to the cut. HDPE machines quite nicely but the chips can really jam up in there without adequate space. On your last cut, make passes in both directions to make sure the conventional cut side is totally cleaned up.

[@chickenpimp5190]

@@StuartdeHaro Thank you for the advice. I'll try that for sure. What speed would you recommend?

[@StuartdeHaro]

@@chickenpimp5190 somewhere in the 1500 to 2000 range. You don't want to go too fast in plastics or you’ll get localized melting and that isn't good. Polyethylene is a thermoset plastic if I remember correctly so you might be able to get away with a bit more, but if you notice melted chips flowing out the top of the cut slow it down.

[@marywager947]

Fantastic.. very clear and informant

[@StuartdeHaro]

I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for watching!

[@j.davidslaugh5761]

Thank You

[@MERCKXWOOD]

Excellent informative video - Thank You

[@StuartdeHaro]

You're very welcome. Thanks for watching!

[@vincentrolfe1384]

I have an Austrian brand boring machine for woodworking (hardwoods) where I can use an end mill or convert the machine-factory equipped for a square chisel. I run mostly square chisel for furniture and wood products (1500 or 3000 rpm). I am making a plunge cut with a 5/8" end mill now for an escutcheon with a shallow cut. One brand of HSS from Korea does not have very sharp cutters on the flat end and the two flutes are also not very sharp. I returned the 5/8" end mill to the manufacturer US headquarter in Chicago and asked why the cutting edges were not razor sharp and the engineer person said they had a finishing process that left the cutting edges without burrs and this for metal would last longer. He suggested that I get their aluminum cutting tools which would be sharper but their finishing process would still not be razor sharp. Other sources for end mills (people with years of experience) were very questioning about this process from Korea? I went to a norther Illinois end mill source and the end mill is razor sharp with a smooth cut and radically less vibration and required less force to make the plunge in walnut wood. What is the real story about finishing processes for longer tool life in two flute flat cut end mills???

[@StuartdeHaro]

I'm going to call BS on this "finishing process" and call it out for what it is; a quality control issue.

[@vincentrolfe1384]

@@StuartdeHaro Thanks for your comment. I know they said all the other end mills in their supply were the same. I ordered a front brake drum for the GM car some years ago and the machining from China was the wrong size and the drum would not even fit the axle hub. Returned the drum. Several months later I was at the same parts company and the manager told me the warehouse in Tennessee had to return all the drums due to failure of spec. I bought a lock miter tooling from Amana tool for a wood box contract. The fit was not even close. I called and talked with Amana and the man said, "the carbide must have moved" BS. He did not know that the carbide is bonded to the steel before the tooling is machined so how could an earlier step in his manufacturing influence the cut!!?? He was BS all the way. I returned the tooling and went with Bosch router bit and fit is good. The same Felder tooling is $400+ with a larger diameter cutting circle which I superior.

[@FretsNirvana]

Excellent tutorial for a newbie thanks ...

[@StuartdeHaro]

You're welcome. Thanks for watching!

[@hyminlottering7680]

Thanks this helped a lot

[@mth469]

Thank you sir.

[@blackbear92201]

Great explanations - thanks for posting!

[@pradipmaheshwari217]

Great work sir.................

[@StuartdeHaro]

Thank you!

[@dalaffarhan2895]

Thanks for the video, very informative.

[@SuperJsToysChannel]

thanks. very useful

[@louisroy9348]

Nice explanation, Thanks

[@johnpwmcgrath]

The roughing endmills are also known as “Straussman” cutters, at least that’s what an old toolmaker taught me…

[@StuartdeHaro]

Never heard that one. I'll have to look into it.

[@muhammedshafi9539]

thanks for this tutorial. nice explanation.

[@jenspetersen5865]

Great video - thanks for putting it out there! It seems like roughing end mills and high flute counts are for very hard materials. As a novice I am wondering why you couldn't rough Aluminium with a roughing mill and finish it with say a 7 or 9 flute to get finish and tolerances. We have products where we have cuts that are 5-6 times diameter, so we would really like to have small forces and many flutes on the finishing passes. Am I just totally off on a tangent?

[@StuartdeHaro]

Not necessarily with regards to hard materials. Roughing endmills produce smaller chips that are easier to evacuate. Any material could benefit from their use. They'd be used to hog off as much of the material as possible with no regard to finish or tolerance and very little regard for the tool life. This lessens the load on your nice (possibly expensive) finishing endmill. The problems you might encounter with Aluminum are the same for any endmill. Aluminum tends to be a bit gummy and loves to stick to cutting tools and itself, so it is easy to load up the flutes on your cutters which leads to failure. Keep the chips evacuated any way you can and you should be okay. Thanks for watching!

[@jenspetersen5865]

@@StuartdeHaro Thanks for putting this out there and for answering!

[@spiderbrandt4066]

To keep the chips evacuated you can use Cutting compound or WD40 or Kerosene , the Kero is from when I was an apprentice in the late 60s , I'ill shut up now .

[@antoniskaloterakis7996]

Hello , great video , may i ask would a corner radius endmill produce a finer cut just as a lathe tool with a big radius does ? And whats a sticker sock ? Like removing a sticker of your hands rapidly ?

[@StuartdeHaro]

Corner radius end mills are more for longer tool life because the corner doesn't break down as quickly. It also eliminates a sharp corner on the inside of the part which could be a stress riser (a spot where a crack might start). That is especially important on heat treated parts. BTW, I said "sticker shock" meaning the high price causes an elevated heart rate and loss of bowel control.

[@friedmule5403]

Really great video, thanks a lot for sharing!! May I please ask you a question on choosing the right type? I want to plunge cut into glassfiber circuit board to repair dents, burn marks and so on. I am just using a mini drill press. Am I right in understanding that a center-cutting square carbide end mill will be a okay choice? How many flutes?

[@StuartdeHaro]

I'm not an expert on circuit boards by any means, but I know that fiberglass is quite abrasive, so you'll want to go with carbide rather than high speed steel. I would use a 2-flute cutter if you're going to plunge. You may want to consider using a router bit instead of an endmill because it won't want to grab as it breaks through the other side.

[@friedmule5403]

@@StuartdeHaro Thanks a lot for your reply!! About the router bit, I am only trying to "dig a hole" so I can fill it up again with epoxy and I have not found any router bits in 1-3 mm so I think that a endmill will be the tool that is most useful.

[@donepearce]

@@StuartdeHaro Making holes in glass fibre pcb material is pretty much only done with carbide drills. It's only edge profiling that uses a cutter.

[@jimm2442]

Great information, Thank you!

[@sidekick3rida]

Super informative. Thanks!

[@chrisgray723]

Hey great video. I was curious if you are familiar with tialn coatings? What's that mean?

[@StuartdeHaro]

Yes I am. That is Titanium Aluminum Nitride. It is a purplish gray coating and allows you to machine at a slightly higher SFM and has higher wear resistance when machining dry. It is my go-to coating for steels. You do NOT want to use it for cutting Aluminum though because it will stick like crazy to the cutter.

[@chrisgray723]

@@StuartdeHaro ok, that helps. Thankyou. I've got some tooling I'd like to get rid of so that I can reinvest in equipment. [e-mail] if you know anyone who may be interested. Nice stuff just not what I need right now. Thanks again.

[@eldiagrama]

very informative, thank you

[@StuartdeHaro]

Thanks for watching!

[@joebilow2992]

Is there a reason you would use the 4 flute endmill to smooth sides of a slot made with the 2 flute instead of using a reamer? Edit,: if this is a stupid question I'm not trolling. I know nothing.

[@StuartdeHaro]

No worries. A reamer isn't built for taking side loads. Its only job is making a hole round and on size.

[@audiokees4045]

I did ceqarch from some endmills for clock bushing, gor that I need endmils who have some measurements like for 2mm bush I need to mill a hole of 1.97 mm for press the bus in. Do you have some advice for that?

[@StuartdeHaro]

An endmill isn't the right tool for that. You want a reamer, which you should be able to get at a supplier like MSC or McMaster Carr. I have a video called Reamer Basics that will give you some info on them, but basically you drill slightly under-sized, then ream the rest of the way. For the reamer, run it at half the speed of the drill and use plenty of oil.

[@toddtavares7386]

Stuart, where is a good place to get quality end mills?

[@StuartdeHaro]

Any of the mail order industrial suppliers, like MSC, Travers, KBC, etc. will sell good quality endmills, like Niagara and OSG. I'll also throw out there that shars.com sells US-made carbide endmills that are really reasonably priced and cut great. They are some seriously good bang for your buck.

[@MetrologyEngineer]

Is there a specific size roughing endmill corner radius that you prefer for aluminum?

[@StuartdeHaro]

Not specifically for aluminum. I generally use 3/8 or 1/2 diameter end mills for all metals because they give a nice blend of RPM/feed rate/chip removal rate. Then I'll switch to a larger cutter if I need to face or smaller cutters if I need a certain size radius, slot, or keyway.

[@khalidkhairy7305]

Very nice

[@MrExo_3D]

Thoughts on Single Flute for Cutting Aluminum

[@StuartdeHaro]

I've never had the pleasure. One consideration is that your feed rate has to be slower the fewer cutting edges you have.

[@MrExo_3D]

@@StuartdeHaro considering routers or small spindles turn at 24k rpm. having a single flute would mean a lower feed rate to achieve better chip size

[@zhoushirley2637]

many use single flutes to cut aluminum now

[@FredMiller]

New subscriber... Very nicely done Stuart. Straight forward, well spoken and the lighting was superb. I am a KZbin creator and am always looking to improve my channel. I make small scratch built stationary engines and dabble in gasification projects. Fred

[@StuartdeHaro]

Thanks Fred. I checked out your channel. You do some really neat stuff! I subscribed to you as well.

[@thatoldbob7956]

When the center finder kicks off, didn’t you just passed the edge?? Especially you can locate an off center center in a hole? Coaxial one I use by hand in both direction then when close enough I use 600 rpm. I am no expert I am an ol man with old machinery, no DRO.

[@MrTimmmers]

Left hand is a slot drill.

[@joell439]

👍👍😎👍👍

[@manikandankrishnamurthy9459]

Good 👍

[@dirkvercauteren1876]

Surface finish depends on the quality of the tool clamping system. A collet sytem has a lot of limitations. Hydro, heat or mechanical shrinking , Sino sytems, are much better in ballance, have less run out. All the cutting edges will cut and tools wil not snap.

[@Vipul.Canada]

Hi, very nice video. thanks for it. i am importing endmills from India. i can send you samples can you please evaluate the product for me?

[@StuartdeHaro]

I can if you would like. My contact info is on the About tab on my channel page. Email me privately and I'll tell you where to mail them.

[@milesmoore5422]

I have no clue what "Chip Clearance" is ?

[@StuartdeHaro]

It is the amount of space in the flutes for the chips. 2 flute cutters have more space so the chips can be evacuated easier. 4 flute cutters have less room because of the extra cutting edges so it's harder to evacuate the chips.

[@milesmoore5422]

@@StuartdeHaro thank you.

[@rayRay-pw6gz]

I find it hard to believe that anybody using CNC equipment, is still using H.S. Steel or even cobalt cutters.

[@StuartdeHaro]

Not everyone is using CNC machines.

[@mavigogun]

It's a bit of a disservice to speak to flutes without distinguishing wood from metal- or addressing the spindle capacity required to drive the tool without causing heat damage. More flutes=more speed; more flutes+less speed=more heat. Oh, your machine can't drive the tool that fast? Too bad- you've just thrown money at a tool you can't use in pursuit of a cut quality practically obtainable via other strategies.

[@StuartdeHaro]

By speed, do you mean feedrate? Because the number of flutes has absolutely nothing to do with RPM. I do have videos discussing both RPM and feedrate if you would like to check those out. The focus of this video was merely to show the different types of endmills available to the machinist and talk about their typical use.

[@mavigogun]

Spindle power-dependent feed rates. My reference, speaking to wood applications, suggests gross approximations, without consideration of nuanced application, of around 1,800-2,000 IPM to keep 4 flute tools happy, 900-1,200 for 3, down around 600 IPM or less for 2- and that running 4 flute tools at lower feed rates resulted in overheating due, as I recall, to chip loading/evacuation rates and cooling. Thanks for the reference to your other work- I'll check it out. I'd rather not carry around misapprehensions- so if you recognize such, please say so.

[@jonathanbrooks1832]

I guess nobody else has ever heard of through coolant? Wtf.

[@malnfc8565]

HSS endmills 🤢

[@metaverseplayer]

Very informative! Thank you!

[@Sachinkumbharjsp]

Very informative! Thank you!