Chamfer cutter recommendations

[GND]

I wondered what cutters people here used to apply a deburring chamfer around the edges of their workpieces?

I've been exploring the capabilities of my recently commissioned Denford Novamill by machining some more complex aluminium parts, and wanted to try adding a chamfer, to remove the burrs and add that professional touch. Easy in CAD, but what cutter to use?

The only vaguely suitable cutter I had was a carbide tipped Vee shaped wood router bit, so that's what I tried. The results were actually surprisingly decent, but I wouldn't want to try it on anything other than the aluminium. I've seen mention of people using countersinks, spot drills, and other vee shaped cutters, but surely there must be better options?!

Searching for dedicated chamfer bits didn't yield much in the hobbyist price bracket, and the few cutters that came up were coated - hence presumably not so great for use in aluminium. What I'd really like is a simple and relatively inexpensive cutter that would work with alu and steel, just capable of putting a basic 1 or 1.5mm chamfer around the machined edges. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[phill05]

I have only ever used Spot drills,and have a range from 3 to 12mm to use on metal, and ground up some carbide 3 flats for use on stone.

Phill

[Neale]

I also use spot drills, size sometimes depending on which collet happens to be in the ER32 holder at the time! However, all other things being equal, maybe 4-6mm spot drill but that's for a small (maybe not much more than 0.5mm) chamfer - almost little more than deburring but enough to make the work look tidy.

[GND]

Many thanks for your feedback, Gents. I suppose I'd always assumed spot drills were not really usable "sideways", but clearly I'm missing a trick based on what you're saying. I guess they are quite rigid cutters after all.

And the best part is that I have a small selection of them already, uncoated, which I can try out. If they work, I need spend nothing extra on tooling for this task - how often can you say that?!

I really appreciate the feedback, and will have a play when I get a chance.