Thread: Screw on tip cutters? (surfacing)

Has anyone used these in critical applications? I'm looking at a Tungaloy screw on head ball em for aluminum mold finishing and want a nice finish with no pushing on the surface. I've used some 3/4 solid carbide ball em's for these large molds and haven't gotten the results I've been looking for. The Tungaloy repped suggested the following and if it doesn't perform to my standards I can return it no questions asked. Figured I'd ask on here first .

1 VBE0750L50-BGAU02S12 .750” Tungmeister 2-flute Ball End Mill 10-10

1 KEYV-S05 Wrench 10-10

1 VSS075L400S12UC 5.50” Carbide Shank (.750 Diameter) 10-18

At a previous employer they used Seco Minimasters with ok luck but I won't say it was any better than a sharp ball mill. I have run Sandvik R216 indexable balls down to 12mm and with sharp inserts they do ok, nicest part is whn you make that 20 hour cut you can change inserts as you need to. I have used the "spade bit style" ball mills and I don't like them, they don't semi finish worth anyhting, try to rough out that last little bit and you'll blow the blade out of it and end up with something that looks like it was bit off by a fire breathing shark if not standing right by it. I don't know what finish you are looking for but am up for hearing a post action report.

IMHO nothing will compare with a solid carbide ballnose.

You want very rigid true running setup with no flexing under changing loads. and in my opinion those indexable. replaceable things just don't deliver. Generally people use them because they are cheaper.

In you need to go deep use tapered endmills for rigidity.

Originally Posted by zero_divide

IMHO nothing will compare with a solid carbide ballnose.

You want very rigid true running setup with no flexing under changing loads. and in my opinion those indexable. replaceable things just don't deliver. Generally people use them because they are cheaper.

In you need to go deep use tapered endmills for rigidity.

What kind of ball endmills would you recommend for surfacing and getting great surface finish with no pushing? I've tried 2-3 fl ford, 2-3 destiny and I'm not really getting the results I'm looking for. I'd rather use a bullnose tool rather than a ball but I always seem to get the parts where the bull nose does no good.

Our company has been using custom carbide cutters for finishing, but since i ve been there we ve been buying
HARVEY tools.

Your (and ours) luck they now carry up to 3/4 dia xtra long endmills

Harvey Tool - Carbide Ball End Mills - Extra Long Length - Extra Long Length End Mills

Basically anything with extremely short flute length and high helix will do fine

Beware: sometimes its better to use smaller dia end mill especially if your machine is not very rigid.
Also i find that little screw ups many CAM/machines do will show up better with bigger tools.
IE you have a little 1/10 of a thou gouge and that 3/4 tool will leave not a small dot but a sizable spot on your surface.

Edit: i realized you are talking about finishing very shallow areas. No tool will do perfect there. you may just have to use 2 cutters: ball for walls and flat for floors.
I find those tools (harvey) do pretty good job on very shallow floors though. Not like i had to do that many times.

Originally Posted by zero_divide

Our company has been using custom carbide cutters for finishing, but since i ve been there we ve been buying
HARVEY tools.

Your (and ours) luck they now carry up to 3/4 dia xtra long endmills

Harvey Tool - Carbide Ball End Mills - Extra Long Length - Extra Long Length End Mills

Basically anything with extremely short flute length and high helix will do fine

Beware: sometimes its better to use smaller dia end mill especially if your machine is not very rigid.
Also i find that little screw ups many CAM/machines do will show up better with bigger tools.
IE you have a little 1/10 of a thou gouge and that 3/4 tool will leave not a small dot but a sizable spot on your surface.

Edit: i realized you are talking about finishing very shallow areas. No tool will do perfect there. you may just have to use 2 cutters: ball for walls and flat for floors.
I find those tools (harvey) do pretty good job on very shallow floors though. Not like i had to do that many times.

I use a ton of harvey tools for small dia / long reach application. I'm running a .032 ball em about .200 deep in a mold right now actually. We are a job shop that got hooked up with a company that outsources a lot of molds that are quick turn requirement so I've been trying to dial it in to a science. Now that you mention it I have way better luck with smaller tools. The machine is a 2010 doosan 4020. I need to get a tool setter so that I can get my tool offsets exact. Lots of wasted time rerunning areas for blending issues. Normally I try to use 3/8 and 1/2 ball ems with a .005-.008 step over but this mold has very steep angled walls that I didn't trust running with a small tool on a long projection.

Take a look at their tapered ballnoses.
We are running moulds (usually 5Deg walls, sometimes 3) as well and those things are life savers to us.

Regarding the tool setter: MEH..

Before we got our HAAS VF3 i pushed guys to use a 1-2-3 ground block to set out tools.
Before they used a 2" light on probe that lights when the tool touches it: not very accurate.
Many shops use 10 or 1 thou shims which is stupid as well.

The trick with 1-2-3 block is to move tool below its edge (i use 2" side) and then start moving Z axis up, at the same time mushing block towards the tool, untill block starts to slide below the tool. Never try to go up and down: you will get screwed on backlash and/or damage the block. This way i was getting 1/10 repeatability with my measurements: no kidding the renishaw probe is more accurate but 123 block is only 40 bucks!!

Also before buying a tool setter make sure the blending issue is not caused by your Z axis growing.

When machine heats up all the tools start cutting deeper. Dunno about Dosan but say Hurcos i worked with used to grow up to 6 thou after only 4 hours of running.

Originally Posted by zero_divide

Take a look at their tapered ballnoses.
We are running moulds (usually 5Deg walls, sometimes 3) as well and those things are life savers to us.

Regarding the tool setter: MEH..

Before we got our HAAS VF3 i pushed guys to use a 1-2-3 ground block to set out tools.
Before they used a 2" light on probe that lights when the tool touches it: not very accurate.
Many shops use 10 or 1 thou shims which is stupid as well.

The trick with 1-2-3 block is to move tool below its edge (i use 2" side) and then start moving Z axis up, at the same time mushing block towards the tool, untill block starts to slide below the tool. Never try to go up and down: you will get screwed on backlash and/or damage the block. This way i was getting 1/10 repeatability with my measurements: no kidding the renishaw probe is more accurate but 123 block is only 40 bucks!!

Also before buying a tool setter make sure the blending issue is not caused by your Z axis growing.

When machine heats up all the tools start cutting deeper. Dunno about Dosan but say Hurcos i worked with used to grow up to 6 thou after only 4 hours of running.

The tool ran over 8 hours at 120 ipm ( i turned it down since it was lights out) and the blending is almost exact between 3 tools so the spindle cooler does its job. I guess I'm just being picky and some 180 grit sand paper goes a long way.

We run the Sandvik R216 style with good results. Better than the results we were getting out of a solid carbide ball nose endmill. Main reason being the 20mm solid endmill was only a 2 flute, whereas the tip was a 4 flute. Not to mention the cost savings. Our application wasn't deep though. And we did have a 50 taper machine pushing it.