how to hold carbide endmill in horizontal mill

My rockwell horizontal mill has a #30 taper spindle. I recently bought some carbide endmills that do not have a flat on them so they cannot be held with an endmill holder.

I have two ways to hold them. Bison ER32 collet chuck or Erickson 180DA collet chuck. Both suffer from the same limitations. The end of the collet chuck is much larger than the endmill holder so it might hit the vise. Also the nut sticks out farther than the collet so about 1/4 inch of endmill length is lost.

I'm looking for better options. Suggestions please?

BTW, good quality carbide endmills are awesome. I was cutting Stainless steel like it was aluminum! chuck

Reply to
Charles A. Sherwood
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Buy extended endmill holders and grind a flat on the shank of the endmills. Thats da only way. Shrug. YMMV of course

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

Reply to
Gunner

I suppose that means I need to buy a diamond grinding wheel to grind a flat on carbide endmill? Why don't they come with flats?

cs

Reply to
Charles A. Sherwood

Greetings Chuck, You can grind a flat on the endmill shank. Also, depending on the load on the cutter you can just tighten the set screw on the shank. I do this in my big mill with the #50 holders. Most of the time I'm not hogging and so have no trouble with carbide endmills pulling out. ERS

Reply to
Eric R Snow

A silicon (green) wheel will grind carbide. They usually don't have flats because there are better ways of holding endmills than with a setscrew. At the high end, they use heat shrink tool holders.

Reply to
ff

Charles Use a green wheel for the grinding of the flat. It won't look as good as when done with a diamond wheel, the the end result will be the same.(at maybe 10% of the cost. dutchman

Reply to
Paul Powell

What Eric said. Unless you're really putting a load on them, a perfectly round end mill shank will be held adequately in a collet.

Reply to
Robert Swinney

Why not put a piece of lead shot under the setscrew. It will spread out and grip the carbide nicely, while the setscrew will not grip the raw carbide nicely, because neither the setscrew nor the carbide end mill will deform readily.

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

A green wheel works just fine. Why dont they come with flats? Some do. But most are intended for use in collets, which dont use the flats.

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

Reply to
Gunner

I suspect this will work. I also suspect it will necessary to push the endmill out from the back. :) Would 50/50 plumbing solder work ok?

Reply to
Charles A. Sherwood

It probably would -- if you can still get it.

As for the removal problem, I would suggest driving a wood screw into the lead to extract it.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

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