Recommend me a face mill.

[Brad93]

My mill has a 40INT spindle, up to 2000rpm and 2hp motor.

Can anyone recommend a 63mm face mill. Predominately for an upcoming cast iron project.

Would prefer something from a known manufacturer. Sandvik, Kennametal, Iscar etc.

 

[Munkul]

I have a Walter 45 degree 63mm face mill, takes SN__1204 style inserts i think. Leaves a lovely finish on steel and aluminium... I think around 1900rpm IIRC.

I also have a 90 degree 50mm facemill, it's a sandvik R390, this takes proprietary sandvik r390 inserts of which there was a whole load of available on ebay at the time. I have another couple of big end mills that take the same inserts.

Personally I'd just buy a mill body from cutwel and get some yg1/korloy inserts, generally they work great when you wind the surface speed up to reccomended speed.

 

[Brad93]

I have a Walter 45 degree 63mm face mill, takes SN__1204 style inserts i think. Leaves a lovely finish on steel and aluminium... I think around 1900rpm IIRC.

I also have a 90 degree 50mm facemill, it's a sandvik R390, this takes proprietary sandvik r390 inserts of which there was a whole load of available on ebay at the time. I have another couple of big end mills that take the same inserts.

Personally I'd just buy a mill body from cutwel and get some yg1/korloy inserts, generally they work great when you wind the surface speed up to reccomended speed.

This is what i've been looking at, the 45 degree ones as supposedly they are better with lower power.

The korloy inserts would be what they call RM8, they're about £13 an insert so probably give those a miss.

 

[Agroshield]

If you want well-priced inserts, APKT are about the most common, and hence most economic. In effect, they are the CCMT or GT2/3 of the milling world.

 

[Brad93]

If you want well-priced inserts, APKT are about the most common, and hence most economic. In effect, they are the CCMT or GT2/3 of the milling world.

I do have APKT for an indexable end mill, however they do seem to need a fair bit of power even on a three insert endmill

 

[Agroshield]

Cutwel/Korloy seem to suggest the positive rake of the AP inserts is useful in reducing power requirements.

See:

Alpha Mill 90 Degree Plunge Mill for APMT Inserts - AMS-MH (Korloy)

The Korloy AMS-MH series Alpha Mill is a 90 degree plunge mill which takes APMT inserts and is ideal for plunge milling on lightweight machines or difficult to cut materials. Diameters range from 14-32mm. The Alpha Mill offers the smoothest cutting action and the widest material application...

www.cutwel.co.uk

The download on that page might find the best grade and geometry for cast iron.

See also 'double positive' discussion here:

Rake angles make or break facemilling | Cutting Tool Engineering

Choosing appropriate axial and radial rake angles is key to ensuring that cutters are best suited for the facemilling application at hand.

www.ctemag.com

Just an observation: at 63mm size, the facemills tend to use 6 inserts, whereas at 50mm they use 5 inserts. And inserts come in packs of 10...

Another small thing to consider is that most of the facemills aimed at the home workshop level market, where machines are almost by definition low powered, use the AK inserts (see ArcEuro's offerings, Chronos/Glanze).

 

[Brad93]

Cutwel/Korloy seem to suggest the positive rake of the AP inserts is useful in reducing power requirements.

See:

Alpha Mill 90 Degree Plunge Mill for APMT Inserts - AMS-MH (Korloy)

The Korloy AMS-MH series Alpha Mill is a 90 degree plunge mill which takes APMT inserts and is ideal for plunge milling on lightweight machines or difficult to cut materials. Diameters range from 14-32mm. The Alpha Mill offers the smoothest cutting action and the widest material application...

www.cutwel.co.uk

The download on that page might find the best grade and geometry for cast iron.

See also 'double positive' discussion here:

Rake angles make or break facemilling | Cutting Tool Engineering

Choosing appropriate axial and radial rake angles is key to ensuring that cutters are best suited for the facemilling application at hand.

www.ctemag.com

Just an observation: at 63mm size, the facemills tend to use 6 inserts, whereas at 50mm they use 5 inserts. And inserts come in packs of 10...

Another small thing to consider is that most of the facemills aimed at the home workshop level market, where machines are almost by definition low powered, use the AK inserts (see ArcEuro's offerings, Chronos/Glanze).

The problem is the 90° angle, it has to require more power.

You also only get two edges on my ones which are korloy Alpha mill.

I think i'm gonna try the SNMX

I've found them on ebay for half the price

 

[Maker]

You also only get two edges on my ones which are korloy Alpha mill.

We've got some at work which take an octagonal insert, you get 4-8 edges depending how bad you chip it. They last ages even with less than ideal feeds and speeds in a manual mill. I'll check the manufacturer tomorrow.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

APT in Glasgow would be worth a shout especially if it's for occasional job-shop use.

63mm 5 tooth 45° SNMX1206 Face Mill for a hair under £50, 8× cutting edges per insert too, so pretty economical.


That said I would be inclined to go for a round insert tool for your application, given they have good edge support for roughing through the skin of cast iron, and the same tool with the same inserts (rotated to fresh edge) will do a fantastic surface finish on your final pass.

Something like this 63mm 6 tooth Face Mill with a RPMX1203 Cast Iron insert would be ideal.



Having a lot of Sandvik and Dolfamex tooling... It is a bit better than the generic tooling, but honestly for even a pretty beefy manual machine (excepting something truly huge like a Huron), I don't think it's practical to run at feeds and speeds that give enough extra productivity to offset the cost.

 

[Rrobson]

I am a big fan of round insert tooling, very high insert strength, unbelievable at roughing and can produce decent finishes.
I remember roughing a job out as an apprentice using a button insert face mill. I lost count of the amount of passes I’d done and did one too many. As I was on a Huron and running 10mm depth of cuts (there was a lot to come off to clean the part up) I’d gone under tolerance by 7mm

It totally depends on your job though. Button tools are great for high productivity but don’t give the quality of finish you can get with many other insert geometries. I do find square insert tooling a good trade-off between roughing capabilities and general finishing work though. Often insert choice is a bigger factor than the choice of tool.
I’ve only ever had experience with sandvik and kennametal, both of which I’d happily use.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Button tools are great for high productivity but don’t give the quality of finish you can get with many other insert geometries.

I read an interesting white-paper about this a little while ago from one of the machine manufacturers.

They were effectively advocating for people to run round insert tooling at higher speeds, and 25%-45% higher feed per tooth when finishing.

Apparently the geometry acts like a "high speed machining" insert at very low depths of cut, and cut quality benefits from the increased loading, with most of the cutting force being transferred axially which reduces vibration.

There's some geometrically complicated chip thinning behaviour going on with the round inserts, which explains why this works, but I would almost certainly bungle the explanation if I try to recall & repeat it here.

 

[Agroshield]

I am a big fan of round insert tooling

I wonder if this might not be a little peripheral to Brad's primary requirement of wanting something that is suitable for a lower power machine.

He states the machine horsepower in the initial post and has mentioned power limitations three times already above.

 

[Munkul]

This is what i've been looking at, the 45 degree ones as supposedly they are better with lower power.

The korloy inserts would be what they call RM8, they're about £13 an insert so probably give those a miss.

Bit spenny i agree.

45 deg face milling is great, as it puts half of the forces back up through the spindle axis instead of sideways. It's definitely the way I'd go.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

I wonder if this might not be a little peripheral to Brad's primary requirement of wanting something that is suitable for a lower power machine.

He states the machine horsepower in the initial post and has mentioned power limitations three times already above.

The Spindle Power to Material Removal Rate relationship of round inserts varies non-linearly with DOC.

You go from significantly lower power demand than 45° cutters at shallow depths, through to about 1.6× the demand of a 90° cutter if you take the maximum DOC.

So power consumption would be down to how the tooling is used.