Mini review of single cutter insert end mills

[BCRider]

I tend to run an aluminium profile CCGT insert in a left-hand lathe tool mounted in a modified fly cutter(slot widened but still on centre). The one time I've had to deal with mill scale I ended up buying a cheap import CBN CCMT/CCGT insert and got a lovely finish from it. Not sure if the wider swath but lower feed/speed would help your productivity or harm it...but thought I'd throw it in on the off-chance it was interesting.

Good thoughts on the idea of CBN.

What started all of this was realizing how fast I was wearing out the HSS stock prep end mills. So back in February I picked up an R8 shank 1.25 diameter three insert face mill that uses APKT inserts. You can read about my findings IN THIS THREAD. I had such good results that it led to me deciding to try this set of tools for doing smaller parts and since the inserts are even cheaper.

But let's back up the horse a bit.... You've only dealt with mill scale ONE TIME ! ? ! ? ! Or do you mean casting skins? Pretty well all my jobs start with removing the black skin found on hot rolled metal unless I'm going all posh and using ground drill rod for the size or the very rare bit of cold rolled that I have.

And back to your idea for the fly cutter. I was thinking that way too. But then I started thinking "I wonder if I could fit two inserts evenly enough". And that led to just buying the three cutter unit.

Mind you the 1.25 is working so wonderfully well that I'm sorry I didn't go for a 1.5" version. Bad feelings about the size due to the horrid performance I had with the big 3 inch four cutter facing head that came with the mill I guess. But then it is one of those nasty things that is large, heavy and has lots more over hang. And that likely led to it chattering and generally proving that it is worthless other than as a doner arbor.

Looking at facing mills a bit more due to MrWhoopee's post and pictures I also found THIS 2" CUTTER that uses the same cheap TPG22 triangle inserts as these single cutter end mills. It also has the solid one piece design which results in minimal tool overhang. I might end up adding one of these to the collection based on my grand success with the others up to now. The worry is that at 2" the loads will cause my moderate weight mill to start thumping and chattering though. Perhaps I'll just stick with the 1.25 and a few extra passes......