Recommendation? Questions about a face mill

Josh Rider

Josh Rider

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Sep 2, 2014
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I have a 2 part question.
There's several times I've wanted a face mill. My fly cutter just isn't...cutting it.
I'm using a harbor freight mini mill r8 spindle

1. What's a good face mill that you guys are using?
2. Does it work well for wood and micarta as well as aluminum and steel?

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
What's the problem with the fly cutter? Usually going up in teeth requires more horse power and rigidity.
 
My ability to cut the proper geometry for the bits. I get a lot of chatter and a terrible finish.
I've been on several sites and followed the instructions for cutting the bit, but I figured a face mill would be better and easier with the carbide inserts.
 
Facemills are nice but generally speaking HSS is much sharper then the carbide inserts that a face mill would use. Your best bet might just be a 2 flute hss 3/4" end mill. I don't have much experance with fly cutters. All my work experance as a machinist was with carbide tooling and only used HSS when cutting PTFE or other plastics. Also HSS runs good in aluminium but nothing like a good 1" 4 flute HSS serrated rougher for steel.
 
On a mini mill you might be better off to do as JT suggests.
I've used my mini mill for milling handle blocks smooth for 15+ years and have used a 1/2" end mill.
Only after I got a larger mill did I finally get a face mill. I don't think the smaller mill can handle that much mass. As well, the vertical height might be an issue.
 
If you're getting chatter with your fly cutter, shorten it up, smaller radius on the cutter, slow down RPM.

A 2 flute 1" endmill might be about your best bet though.

What size bits does your fly cutter take?
 
Thanks guys,
After hearing the responses I think I will go with a 3/4" 2 flute. I thought face mills were more popular on the little units. I didn't realize they wouldn't do as well on a smaller machine.
Thanks for the education.

John, it's a 1/4" bit in my fly cutter.
 
I have a pile of brazed carbide cutters. I could grind one for a fly cutter and send it to you.
 
Certian indexable tooling can be great on small mills. Currently the mill at the shop here is a grizzly equivalent 6x26 knee mill, and lacking rigidity is an understatement.
I've been using a kennametal single insert indexable endmill for all of that sort of work, and it's unbeatable. The little inserts last damn near forever, and it leaves a finish you can see yourself in with the right feeds and speeds.
You'd want something positive rake though.
The indexable endmill is great for light passes at high speeds, but HSS is better for everything else on this mill.
 
I had a difficult time learning the proper take angle and the clearance angle.
I'd really like to take some machining classes if we can ever convert to 30 hour days.

I'm sure it's like learning to sharpen your own drill bits, in the sense that it takes practice.

I would use my surface grinder with belts, but the micarta dust would be overwhelming and not something I want to deal with. I don't mind flattening or finding shiny on a disk, but taking off .200 is a lot.
 
If you go on YouTube, abom79 and oxtoolco both have great videos on grinding lathe tool bits. Thisoldtony has a good one too.
A flycutter isn't really any different than a HSS lathe tool.
Watch all 3 of those videos and I'd be willing to bet your next attempt at grinding one would work well.
 
These are all a bit different, and all worth watching if you want to get into a bit of the theory of how cutting tools work, and how to grind for different applications

Personally I use the approach Abom uses, without a chipbreaker
 
i had the same problem with my mini mill and flycutter. probably because i did not know what i was doing. now i use a 5/8" end mill to flatten micarta and wood scales. takes a bunch of passes but they are nice and flat. i will try a larger size next time. thanks for posting the videos !
 
y fly cutter works great i have one ground for wood and one gound for AL/brass i woudl not try to cut steel with a fly cutter on my mini mill (not even sure i woudl want to do it on my bridgeport withought carbide cutter)
edit to add video i did years ago
 
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Even once you go up to a larger mill, you're usually better off using a large sharp HSS end-mill for facing wood/composites for handles.

As JT said, it's just typically much sharper, (although you can get ultra-sharp inserts for cutting Aluminum and composites) and typically, you can buy surplus USA made HSS large diameter end mills cheap. One 2" end mill with whatever the largest shank you can run will last for a very long time if you don't use it for metal. Get one with sharp corners or a very small corner radius and you can get really great results.

On smaller manual machines, you usually will get a much better finish also, since most of the face mills in that size capacity are for roughing, not finishing, and you're pretty limited on the size of face mill even a bridgeport can swing.

On bench sized tiny machines like the HF mini, yeah, I'd use a half-inch sharp carbide cutter, although you probably have enough power for cutting wood and micarta to swing a 1 or bigger cutter with a smaller shank, as long as you're just lightly facing.
 
Obviously you guys are better at searching the videos than I am.
I did watch some of the Tom's technique vids a while back.
I will watch the rest of these over the next few days since I'll be out of town.
Another reason I am looking for a quicker alternative is im very limited to my time in the shop and I dread wasting it on the mini mill. I feel like I'm on it a lot already. I was thinking about setting up a bank of small drill presses for progressive drill sizes and tapping.

I know it's frowned upon by some, especially certain guys I'm a big fan of, but I really see he benefit of waterjet. Even though I move knives at a much slower pace than even a part timer. But that's another story.
 
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