End Mill / Slot Drill sets

I'm in the throes of buying tooling for my first ever mill and I see J&L have sets of HSS slot drills and end mills at reduced prices atm. The slot drills are a set of 6 for £16.45 (3,4,6,8,10,12mm) and the end mills are a set of 10 for £33.95 (4,5,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20mm). What is the opinion of the group on these sets ? Am I likely to use all these sizes eventually or would it be better to buy fewer (maybe different) pieces and add to them as time goes on ?

Also, what other cutters am I likely to need almost immediately ? (Application is model IC engines).

J&L have end mills and slot drills on more or less permanent discount. If you phone them, they will put you on their mail list and send you a new discount list every month.

What you buy depends on what you have to hold them with. If you are using a Clarkson type chuck then you can only hold cutters with shank diameters for which you have a collet. If you have an ER type chuck with a full collet set then you can hold pretty much any size up to the capacity of the collets.

J&L's delivery is very fast indeed - personally I'd buy what you need when you need it.

Norman Billingham

J&L do next day delivery, so I tend to work out what I'm going to over a month say and then buy specifically the tooling needed (they eMail special offers almost every week) , rather than sets. I use 12mm end mills far more often than any other size and break more 3mm slot drills than any other size! I'm just in this for fun - no heavy duty projects so sets of things don't really work out for me.

The end mill set you identify I would not have used over the year the

Just make sure you are buying what you need or else its less of a bargain.

Steve