I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Taig cnc mill I just
bought. Can I get some suggestions as to a type and basic assortment
of endmills to get, and where to get them. I will start milling WAX
and graduate to metal later. It comes with a 1/8" and 1/4" collet. Do
I need more collets of different sizes.
I have read alot about keeping the endmills sharp. Does this apply
as much to wax? Do I need to get a sharpening setup?
CNC NOOB
Todd,
I will start milling WAX and graduate to metal later. It comes with a 1/8" and 1/4" collet. Do I need more collets of different sizes. I have read alot about keeping the endmills sharp. Does this apply as much to wax? Do I need to get a sharpening setup?
I’m pretty new at this too.
I have been getting my cutters from Bits&Bits. They are on the web.
I have been using .003"/6 degree pyramid cutters. I have also broken a
few. It appears that there are overkill. I see that one of my
service bureaus is using .004"/10 degree cutters on the Revo 540. I
think that I’ll be doing the same soon. The cutters that I have been
using are carbide. This makes them brittle. I suspect that I’ll try
the high speed ones soon too. Although they dull much quicker, they
are said to be a little tougher.
Initially, I made the mistake of buying a tool holder. You are right
to go with collets. Now that I am using collets, I have no detectable
runout.
I’d love to hear other suggestions.
I want to thank another writer for his suggestion, and give a
correction - The company is Bits & Bits- lots of hard to find stuff,
there. However, the web site is www.bitsbits.com, which he didn’t
include. I have a “Bridgport” type miller - R8 spindle, 2hp, and I
don’t do that miniature stuff on it, much. However, endmills are the
same… Obviously, the work you want to do will determine what you
need, but you’ll always want small, medium and large. You want a
cutter to cover the entire surface for surface milling whenever
possible - that means no line down the middle. And you don’t want to
rough out a ring blank with a 1/16" bit either. You probably could
start with a range of sizes from the smallest you think up to about
1/2" or larger - and you’ll need collets for every shank you get,
obviously. And drills, too. I have some 3/8" and 1/2" solid carbide
cutters that are nice, but all the rest of my endmills are HSS. Then
I have indexables up to 6" for face milling - overkill for you, most
likely. I have many small (wire size) carbide burrs, but they will
break if you blow on them too hard. You really need tiny, precision
machinery to use them successfully. Go HSS - it’s way cheaper, and
will get you started, and there is no advantage to carbide until you
get to steel or stainless. As for sharpness - all edged tools have
to be sharp - dull cutters don’t cut, they maul. I sharpen mine on an
offhand grinding wheel - a 1" diamond wheel on a flex shaft
w/optivisor for wiresize. It’s imperfect, but I’m good at it, and
I’m not doing aerospace. Lastly - go west, young man, to Ebay - there
are all things machinery there at bargain prices - thousands of
endmills…
Todd,
Can I get some suggestions as to a type and basic assortment of endmills to get, and where to get them. I will start milling WAX and graduate to metal later. It comes with a 1/8" and 1/4" collet. Do I need more collets of different sizes. I have read alot about keeping the endmills sharp. Does this apply as much to wax? Do I need to get a sharpening setup?
Most endmills that we use for wax are 3mm diameter which equals 1/8
inch. You already have this size. so for wax your not going to need
another collett.
What type and style endmills you will need will depend on what you
want to mill and how deep/big it is and how many steps you want to do
with it. If you are going to hog out or “rough” large amounts of wax
prior to running a final toolpath you will need a large long reach
end mill. Personally I would suggest something that is at least 1 to
1.25mm. This can be a flat or ball end type. Most jewelers are
adverse to changing tools and running multiple toolpaths and usually
try and accomplish the milling in one step and one toolpath. To do
this most jewelers usually use a profiler. pyarimid. or helix type
endmill.
What type and size usually is personal preference. Pyramids of 12
degree .003 or.004 tips are a good all purpose choice, and will do
most all of the rings, pendants and other things you want to mill. I
know people who use a 1/32 flat end mill and also ball end mills to
do some milling also. The majority of jewelers I know usually use a
“profiler” or pyramid, or Gemvision’s helix. I like the 12 degree.004
helix cutters that Gemvision sells, but they are very expensive. The
reason I like them is they have a 12mm cutting depth and will do a
lot of work in one toolpath. The y will impact wax into small areas
though and you really do need a product called cool mist to squirt on
the wax while cutting. This allows the impacted wax to float to the
surface so you don’t have to pick it out of the little crevices. You
can also use windex and water…but this contains ammonia and will
pit and rust your mill, and any other surface that it lands on. My
personal suggestion is to pick a good pyramid and a profiler to start
with (a large end mill if you want to do roughing) and experiment
with these…then branch out.
I will also warn you, one of the first things you will cut is your
hand. These things cause really nice, deep wounds with lots of
bleeding. I think mills require some type of blood sacrafice befor
actual bonding between you and the mill takes place.
has most everything you will need. They can most likely advise you
as to which one is best for your needs.
As for sharpening them. Once broken they are basically a throw away,
unless the break is a minor one. Bits and Bits also resharpens them
for a reasonable cost. The alternative is a Deckle sharpening system
which is alot of money, and some type of lens to determine just what
size it is after you sharpen it. My point is that for most folks it
is not very cost effective.
Hope this helps.
David
I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Taig cnc mill I just bought. Can I get some suggestions as to a type and basic assortment of endmills to get, and where to get them. I will start milling WAX and graduate to metal later. It comes with a 1/8" and 1/4" collet. Do I need more collets of different sizes.
Congratulations! The Taig’s a real workhorse, and while it was
designed for metal, wax is not a problem for it. It’s good to have
more collet sizes, especially 5/16" (the largest) and 3/16" ( usual
in mid-range endmills). They aren’t expensive. You don’t say what
you’re planning to do, so it’s difficult to recommend any particular
tools, but a basic assortment to get you started would include some
large and medium-sized flat-end endmills, both 4-flute for side-cuts
in hard materials and 2-flute for slots. These are good for making
flat surfaces which meet vertical walls at right angles; most
traditional machining chores are based on this; it’s also called
2.5d machining. Make sure the endmills you get are center-cutting, if
you plan to start in the middle of a piece of material instead of
moving in from an edge.
CNC makes it possible to also cut forms with compound curvature, by
moving in the X and/or Y directions while simultaneously varying the
height (Z). For this sort of contoured surface, you need a collection
of round-nosed endmills, also called ball-end cutters. They make
smooth surfaces with many parallel passes; the smaller the tool, the
closer together these have to be to minimize the “cusps” or tiny
waves in the surface. Depending on the detail in your part, you
choose the largest cutter that can get into it; using too small a
cutter just takes more time for the same result. So get a set of
ball-end cutters starting with 5/16" and going down to the smallest
you think you’ll need. 2-flute, 3-flute, and 4-flute endmills are
all useful for various jobs and materials.
If you have extremely tiny details to get into, then you need a very
small cutter; this is where the 10,000 rpm max spindle speed of the
Taig can become a limitation, as the tool must spin fast enough to
get the material out of the way as it moves, or the tool will break.
Wax is fairly forgiving in this regard, as a tool’s flutes can take a
much bigger chipload of wax than of metal, but when you’re using
endmills at.015" diameter and smaller, there’s not a lot of room for
error. It is possible to fit a high-speed spindle to the Taig, if
that’s a major part of what you plan to do.
As well as flat and ball-nose endmills, there are other forms of
cutters that can be handy. Conical engraving cutters, which have half
the diameter removed, leaving the other half to act as a cutting
surface, are useful for fine linear detailing, and you can stone the
tips to soften the points, making something like a ball-nose, but
much less fragile. There are also variations which lie somewhere
between conical cutters and endmills; these can be useful in
situations where the detail is fine but an absolutely vertical wall
isn’t important. Here are a few suppliers on the 'net:
http://www.accugrind.com
http://www.antaresinc.net
http://www.bitsbits.com
http://www.conicalendmills.com
http://www.harveytool.com
http://www.micro100.com
I have read alot about keeping the endmills sharp. Does this apply as much to wax? Do I need to get a sharpening setup?
CNC NOOB
One of the nice things about cutting wax is that it doesn’t dull the
tools; at least I’ve never noticed it happening. Even when cutting
metal, it’s a lot more common to break them than to dull them, at
least at first. And sharpening multiflute endmills isn’t something
most people can do accurately; the tooling required is prohibitively
expensive. For the sizes we’re talking about, it’s not generally even
economical to send them out for resharpening; if you’ve managed to
wear one out, figure it has paid for itself.
Andrew Werby