My Build - I blame you lot for this....!

[HiltonSteve]

Been doing a bit more testing tonight and decided to see the results on aluminium with 5 different type's of cutters.

1 - Alimaster 2 flute 8mm
2 - HSS 2 flute 6mm
3 - HSS 6mm ripper
4 - Solid carbide 2 flute 6mm
5 - K2 coated 3 flute 6mm

Ran them all at the same speed and feeds to see which gave the best surface finish results, spindle speeds 4000rpm and 6000rpm, feedrate 300mmpm, side cutting taking 0.5mm off which is what i would normally leave for finishing, depth of cut dependent on cutter length. Tried both climb and conventional milling with each cutter.

Results -

1 - Alimaster - Certainly removes material easily but not the best surface finish.

2 - HSS 2 flute 6mm - Cuts nice but still get the chatter lines, surface finish similar to alimaster.

3 - HSS 6mm Ripper - Does what it says on the tin, rips the material off very easily without producing loads of swarf. Finish not good but definitely my choice for roughing.

4 - Solid carbide 6mm 2 flute - This gave a poor finish, carbide is very hard and sounded like it when it was cutting. Kept leaving lots of very small but even ridges. May need to be pushed harder to get best results.

5 - K2 coated 3 flute 6mm - Cheapest cutter of the lot and gave the best results, i put it mainly down to it having more flutes than the others which helps with the intermittent cutting. I have not got any 4 flute cutters but i will be getting some to try.

A few photo's attached, did not take photo's of all the results as some started to look similar to others so did not see much point!

Conclusion - More flutes give a better finish but a ripper is best for roughing out, also need a more sturdy machine to give a better surface finish, but now at least I know what surface finish the machine is capable of and what to expect from it.