Goober68
Plastic
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2012
- Location
- California, USA
Hi all,
Background:
Just picked up about 200lbs of US made endmills for pretty much free at a shop liquidation, everything from 1/4" up to 1.5" 2,4 flute, square, radius and ball-nosed, some carbide, mostly HSS and cobalt. 1/3 of them are brand new, and the other 2/3 range from slightly dull to abused and blue. In a separate deal, I found a small surface grinder for about $400. Fully sharpened and ready to go this is a couple thousand dollars in end mills (my guess - probably 300+ endmills).
Question:
I always like the rational behind buying tools, so lets assume I will enjoy the process of learning how to sharpen end mills and be willing to spend the time. Will the possible extra expense and setup time of a more general purpose machine be worth it for the other things I could do with it? I understand the usefulness of a surface grinder vs. the dedicated Darex/Cuttermaster but what about the T&C machines - can they do anything besides tool grinding? If you had $1500-$2000 to spend to make this happen, which route would you go, and why?
Possible setups:
Darex E90
Cuttermaster
Air spindle and fixtures for surface grinder (and surface grinder to go with it)
KO Lee or Cincinnati T&C grinder with fixtures
Others that I don't know about
TIA,
-Niall
Background:
Just picked up about 200lbs of US made endmills for pretty much free at a shop liquidation, everything from 1/4" up to 1.5" 2,4 flute, square, radius and ball-nosed, some carbide, mostly HSS and cobalt. 1/3 of them are brand new, and the other 2/3 range from slightly dull to abused and blue. In a separate deal, I found a small surface grinder for about $400. Fully sharpened and ready to go this is a couple thousand dollars in end mills (my guess - probably 300+ endmills).
Question:
I always like the rational behind buying tools, so lets assume I will enjoy the process of learning how to sharpen end mills and be willing to spend the time. Will the possible extra expense and setup time of a more general purpose machine be worth it for the other things I could do with it? I understand the usefulness of a surface grinder vs. the dedicated Darex/Cuttermaster but what about the T&C machines - can they do anything besides tool grinding? If you had $1500-$2000 to spend to make this happen, which route would you go, and why?
Possible setups:
Darex E90
Cuttermaster
Air spindle and fixtures for surface grinder (and surface grinder to go with it)
KO Lee or Cincinnati T&C grinder with fixtures
Others that I don't know about
TIA,
-Niall