Broken Mills - Salvage

Over the years I have accumulated a pot full of broken end mills. Mostly carbide.

I've found a few uses for them.

Sell them to a carbide user or exchange them for new mills at a trade value of about 1-5% depending on the carbide tool producer. They love it because they get carbide WAY below market. Still, if you have no other use for the broken tools why not.

I've made a few scribes using some of the 1/8 shank tools by pressing them into an aluminum rod and putting some knurls on the rod for easy holding, and grinding a point on the tool stub sticking out. They make great scribes as they are tough enough to mark almost anything else in the shop. Still I only need so many scribes.

I've made drag engravers with them. A concentric spring loaded tool with a set screw holder for a 1/8 shank tool works great. I put a sharp point on them for drag engraving harder materials, and a rounded point on them for emboss engraving softer materials.

I could use larger tools for the previous two uses, but its just a lot more grinding for the same result.

I have taken a few larger end mills where the first part of the flutes was totally chowdered and lopped off the bad part to use them for side milling. It works ok, but I don't really have a tool that I can get good perpendicular cuts with, so I can only use those tools for a handful of very rough first ops.

I use V front spotting drills and chamfer mill. I use this type of tool all the time to make sure clamping screws in molds start in the correct location in molds on the mill or to take the burr off the edge of a part. Recently I ran across a great deal on some 90 degree carbide spotting drills on Ebay so I bought a couple. They were surprisingly short. Not an issue really. For most applications I don't leave much more than the taper sticking out of the tool holder anyway. However that wasn't my first thought. My first thought was he took some broken half inch end mills and ground a 90 with some flutes on the stub. My next thought was I wonder if it would be worth it for me to do that?

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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