Really cheap eBay/Chinese endmill

[Bob Engelhardt]

You can't really tell from a photo whether an endmill is any good. Perhaps you should try taking smaller cuts.

I haven't actually used it yet. It just looked so bad that I posted.

[old mart]

I have had a lot of luck buying used 6mm endmills from ebay, When cnc mills have cut a certain ammount, the tooling gets changed, and to someone like me, the endmills are still pretty sharp. They were so cheap and good that I bought the remaining stock as soon as I had looked at the first ones delivered. If there is a job that risks damaging the cutters, I just use the cheap ones and so far I haven't broken any of them. I also have bought resharpened and recoated carbide endmills which are very slightly undersize, which is no disadvantage for a manual mill. They are usually from 1/4 to 1/10 of the price new for up to 16mm cutters, which is the maximum size for er25.
As already mentioned, the Chinese solid carbide milling cutters are very good value.

[Doozer]

Buy a $10 China end mill
or a $50 Niagara Cutter end mill.
Will the Niagara end mill last 5X as long?
I am betting on yes.
(I made up the prices, but you know what I mean).

But I get it, that you are experimenting
with a new machine, and expect to break some.

-Doozer

[JoeLee]

Just because your new to milling and will be learning doesn't necessarily mean your going to be breaking end mills at an alarming rate.
That's like getting a new car and taking out an excessive amount of insurance telling yourself I'm going to be getting into a lot of accidents.
You just have to go easy and get the feel for it.
Start out with shallow cuts and slow feed rates. Get the feel for how the cutter is handling the work load. etc.

The only end mills I've ever broke were a couple 1/8" carbide ones and a 1/16" one. Dulling and chipping the edges doesn't count ! Burning them up...... well that's debatable.
I did break a new 3/8" dovetail cutter once but I wasn't milling with it. I moved the table and ran it into the side of the vise. But I don't talk about that one.

JL..................

[DennisCA]

I bought a nice 2nd hand german end mill and broke it on the 2nd day, setup wasn't rigid enough. It was only 10 euros, but still.

[OaklandGB]

Chinese design and manufacture products for an intended market. Their domestic products are generally not their export products, or are priced higher accordingly.
I think it safe to say that you would not find this end mill in any Chinese factory or machine shop. It simply would not be tolerated.

[DennisCA]

That's funny because from what I've heard from people living in china, is that the stuff they produce for the domestic market is even more atrocious than whats get exported.

One example I was reminded of in 2020 was the complaints about shoddy face masks from China because countries bought loads of masks early 2020 and they where substandard and there was a lot of hoopla and resignations in the press over it here. The explanation came out later when someone said they'd just been sending them the masks normally produced for chinese hospitals, and not the export types. There was such a demand upswing they couldn't manufacture enough so they sent those.

[rickyb]

Oh! Well, I just learned something, thanks.

Problem with the OP’s end mill is the the flute radius is on only 3 of the 4 flutes. The grind leaves much to be desired also.

[754]

Try it and see what it does. .
fwiw leading to calculate cutting speeds witkk save you money,and can save you time...