roughing mill

As Tony the tiger said "THEY'RE G-R-E-A-T !!!" These really reduce the hp. and vibration to remove large amounts of metal. If you're machine will take it, bury the cutter. The machine will bitch at you when you take too much. You're better off to use more of the side, deep cut, with less rpm and feed. A very comon mistake with this endmill, and all others for that matter, is getting the chip too thin by having too much rpm for the feed you're using. You're just chopping the steel up into fine chips, not removing metal.

Karl

Walter The rougher endmills work very well, the serrations on the teeth cut the chips up into small bits instead of the long sharp shards that will stick in your fingers. :-) And because of the interuped cut I find they don't chatter as much when taking a full width cut. A good quality rougher will last longer than a compareable regular endmill but is a little more difficult to sharpen, as you hace to grind the flute and not the circumfrance of the tool. It can be ground on a standard tool and cutter grinder but I have only done them on CNC T&C grinders myself. As for price a rougher will be about 40% more than a comparable regular endmill (as per KBC pricing on Niagara cutters) You will also want to get them in the TiN or TiCN coating, it only adds a couple of dollars and should double the life of the cutter in most materials.

We use them all the time to hog out lots of metal. They leave an almost serrated surface finish but who cares. They also do well in interruptted cuts, things like coping the ends of tubing. If tested them in a 2hp mill/drill, seem to work fine up to perhaps 3/4" dia cutter. Not sure if it would have the rigidity to do

For your project I'd certa> I see these things called "roughing mills" that look sort of like a tap. I

Hog mills will rough steel like no other HSS end mill. They take heavier feedrates and depths of cut than standard end mills, and cut more quietly.

They're expensive. When the cutting edges first start to get tiny flats on them is the time to resharpen. They get ground on the face, so don't lose much diameter when sharpened.