Hi,
last night, I had to mill a 1/2" notch in a chunk of steel. Normally, being of a "Tim the Tool Man" mentality, I'd just grab my 3/4" end mill; the biggest my little China 3 in 1 is spec'd for. But, I've been thinking (for lack of actual experience) and it occurred to me that a smaller end mill would have less distance between the flutes and thus, with a higher RPM, more cutting edges per second for the same surface speed. So I used a 1/2" end mill and it worked significantly better than I'd have gotten with my trusty 3/4". It just cut plain faster.
So, my questions to the knowledgeable are:
1) was this just a fluke of using a marginal machine?
2) or, is there some rule of thumb for how large an end mill to use when it's size is not determined by some internal cut? You know, like: "minimum
3 teeth in contact with the work" for a saw blade.
Is bigger really better?
David...