End mill sharpening

[MMurphy]

Picked a a few end mills during a dumpster diving expedition. Unfortunately most of the end mills needed to be in the dumpster. Maybe two or three might be usable as is. Anyway, while looking them over, I decided to try my hand at sharpening the flutes by hand, since they were trashed anyway. Broken flutes, big chips and so on.

I tried one "technique", laying the end mill on a diamond lap and scrubbing it back and forth while rotating the mill. I did a few strokes and then looked at the flutes with a mag. glass and noted that the original angle had been mostly ground away. Tried the mill with my thumb, felt kinda of sharp but not like a real end mill.

Question. Does anybody think the mill will cut? I won't get a chance to try cutting with it till this weekend.

Second question. Has anybody heard of, or invented a way to sharpen end mill flutes by hand with a fixture of some kind?

I have a fixture that allows me some success in sharpening the end of an end mill on a surface grinder. But nothing for the flutes. Someday I hope to find a used cutter grinder and learn how to use it the proper way. Hard to find.

In the meantime let the flames begin!!

Thanks

Mike

[ibewgypsie]

A cnc unimat with dremel tool mounted on carriage.

A digitizing probe to read flutes, angle, store to simple vb program. That is how you'd be cheapest to build a rig to sharpen them.

I have not gotten the unimat yet.

[Smtty58]

You need to maintain the angles. Rotating it on the stone will leave the cutting edges parallel to the work, hence rubbing instead of cutting.