Fastenal carbide end mills

[platypus2020]

As anyone have any experience with the micro-grain carbide end mills sold by Fastenal? One of the facility that I work in, is closing their in-house machine shop, has 50-60 new end mills, that I can buy at about 1/3-1/2 their original cost, Are they any good? None of the shop workers are there any more, can't ask them.

[Fred_M]

Fastenal carbide end mills

I am only a hobbist, and got a 3/8 inch four flute carbide from them.
It gives me a better finish than the HSS end mill I got from Sherline.
This was using my Sherline mill. I can't say how it will perform on larger machines. Also this is only one unit, I haven't tried any others. Not much info, I hope it helps. - Fred

[larry_g]

Fastenal provides hardware at our plant and they will provide the quality you want to pay for. Their house brand taps are from China and are marked so.
lg
no neat sig line

[grand master flash]

Fastenal Quality

I am an industrial electrician by trade and I did buy some Fastenal unistrut type product for a home project. I cut the strut in two and laid the 2 pieces back to back and factory ends together. The holes lined up at factory end but the farther away from the factory the more and more the holes were missaligened and at the far end they were almost 1/2 a hole off.
GMF

[JCHannum]

Fastenall is just another supplier of import tooling. They started as a supplier of fasteners to industry, and have branched out into the retail market.

There is a store near here, but I have yet to use it. When trying them from time to time in MRO purchasing, they were typically over priced and offered poor service.

[Carld]

If you can get them for 1/3 to 1/2 then buy what you need or think you need or can afford. They may not be the best quality but for that price why quible. Just remember that carbide is fragile and if not used right is no better than HSS or Cobalt. Do a price comp on ENCO or MSC.