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Sharpening Mills

How does one go about sharpening an end mill? Any web pages on how to do it? At the last place I worked I noticed a mobile sharpening service van lurking around the model shop door once a week -- is this something that even the pros routinely farm out?

And finally -- how do I, the home machinist with a need to sharpen one or two end mills a year, go about getting them sharpened? Do I just need to make friends with a machinist, are there places I can drop them off? Buy resharpened ones? Where? Buy new ones from McMaster and throw the old ones out?

Thanks.

Reply to
Tim Wescott
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If you have a surface grinder then you can do a passable job on the end of an end mill by using a 5C end mill grinding fixture. If you don't, then I suggest you look up "tool and cutter grinding" in your Yellow Pages. Getting an end mill sharpened usually costs from 25-50% of new and if you just get them sharpened on the end then they will still be the correct diameter. "Resharps" have usually been ground on the periphery as well as the end. They're good for lots of stuff but unless you're real sharp with a micrometer you have to deal with some uncertainty as to your cutting tool width. There are techniques to handle this, of course. - GWE

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Given that you can buy top quality M2 end mills for $1.50 up [see

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and many other sites ] it no longer pays to get these sharpened.

You may want to invest in a mini-idexable end mill that takes TPG22 inserts. See WholeSale tool SKU 1093-0820, 25 and 30 for

1/2, 9/16 and 5/8 diameters w/ 1/2 weldon shank. These are about $12.00 each or $26.00 for all three. You get three tips per insert and the TPG22 inserts go for about $2.50 each on sale and the TPU22 inserts which work as well for me go about $0.90 to $1.50 each on sale.

Wholesale Tool is about the cheapest place I have found for endmills, better than HarborFreight and they have sizes / types no one else lists. Also lots of Aerospace regrinds for $0.50 up.

GmcD

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

I have tried "generic" endmills from enco and they leave a lot to be desired. I have good luck with "quality imports" from various places. I have been surprised to find some of these come from Japan, some come from korea but I don't think any have come from china.

I bought some plain milling cutters from enco and they work well. Made in poland I think.

I bought high quality carbide endmills from grainger in a pinch and I am still using some of them after 8 years. Hard to believe any cutter lasting that long, expecially since these were the first endmills I ever bought and used only on my sherline mill. I just used one last weekend to cut a lot of

416 stainless steel.

Enco regularly have name brand endmills on sale. I just bought some small carbide endmills for about 5 bucks each. For a couple bucks more, they have double ends.

I will have to check out wttool. thanks

chuck

Reply to
Charles A. Sherwood

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