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Face Mill Rrecommendations for Aluminum

John Deere

Aluminum
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Location
The South
Gentle readers, I'm in need of about a 4" face mill for use in aluminum. Good looking surface finish will be important, big time material removal will not.

What should I be looking for? Will round inserts be the way to go?
 
Don't over think it.

A 45 degree lead with square (SEHT or similar) inserts leave a great finish. We use Sumitomo WEX face and end mills. No complaints.
 
face mill

Mitsubishi has probably some of the best face mills & grades out there - ASX445, AXD4000, AXD7000 & more. Call cust. svc 800-523-0800 to find out who's your rep.
 
Holy Cow! Two responses in and nobody has mentioned Ex Kenna's ripper mill???:eek:
Well lets get that out of the way! 4inch ripper mill with polished aluminum specific inserts kick ass! I have 3 inch for plowing. Then amazingly after moving cubes of material it leaves a great finish. I am sure the above responses are good ones, but if you wanted to stereotype the forum you would have a fair bet that aluminum is being moved with Kurtis' (exkenna) ripper mill run on a mari tool holder, in none other then a sharp SV 2412 VMC.
;)
Good night all!
 
Iscar E90AL series cutters with IC28 APCR inserts, either 16 or 22 mm. Great finish, work to a 90° shoulder, lots of sizes, excellent for roughing too. (A lot like a ripper mill)
 
Mitsubishi has probably some of the best face mills & grades out there - ASX445, AXD4000, AXD7000 & more. Call cust. svc 800-523-0800 to find out who's your rep.
X2. We've been using the ASX445 2.00" 4 insert cutter with SEGT inserts with the JP chip breaker for about 5 years now with awesome results, at times .250" deep at 50 IPM.
 
The Ripper Mill kits are on sale (free inserts).
Whoop! Whoop! :D

DSC06938.jpg

DSC06941.jpg
 
me too

I have exactly the same issue - surface milling 4" wide aluminum with good finish. We are getting ripples currently, and the unit we are using uses inserts we can't identify.

We have to cover a 4" in one pass, so I' will need 4.5-5" head with appropriate inserts. Most of the above is Greek to me. That Ripper thing sounds interesting, but I was unable to find a site.
 
We bought a Maritool 90 degree rectangular insert face mill for facing thousands of glass filled nylon parts. After that job was done, I have been using it for aluminum and it makes a pretty finish. I'm no expert on this, but I thought I would toss Maritool's hat in the ring.

Indexable Tooling - MariTool

-Jim
 
A) I like the 45* mills a lot. They leave super finishes, but you kant go to a shoulder. They are for full decking only.

B) Ex-Kenna's tool looks exactly like a Mitsubishi - no?

C) Mits tooling for the units like Kennas pic is on back-order currently doo to the quake. (not that it has enything to doo with Ex-Kennas supply chain. I am talking about Mits in particular.

We have one job where we use the Mits like above, simply b/c of the small corner tip. Makes it a low feed/Ra tool, but we have a non-rigid part ap, and the Kennametal like it had too much wiper (?) and created too much chatter/bad finish. Went back to the Mits - as much as I hate the import...


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
Ripper mill kit prices:

End mill version
1.00" 2-flute w/20 inserts $240.00
1.25" 2-flute w/20 inserts $245.00

Face mill version
2" 4-flute w/30 inserts $360.00
3" 5-flute w/30 inserts $385.00
4" 6-flute w/30 inserts $410.00

The Ripper Mill and the Mits BXD are very similar except mine has two pegs in the insert pocket that keep the insert from trying to rotate at high rpm/feed rates. Considering that a quality cutter can easily exceed $100 per inch of diameter this is a smoking good deal. The inserts are usually about $13.00 each so you're basically getting them for free. There are probably 60 guys on this board using these and I've only had one return. I don't make a habit of pushing tools on the message board but this tool is such a money maker.

Another tool to consider is the Shear Hog marketed by AB Tools.
Shear Hog

I hear really good things about the Shear Hog but don't have any personal experience with it. Lots of guys here on the board using it as well.

X
 








 
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