Aluminum body face mills

[Houndogforever]

I see these 2 inch anodized aluminum face mill cutters that take the standard apkt1604 insert.

What is the purpose of these being made from aluminum? Seems you would need to throw it away after indexing inserts 3-4 times.

Does anybody here use one? Just curious really.

thanks

 

[Comatose]

The ripper mills are aluminum. One good crash or a thrown part and they're done.

On the other hand, you can spin them up to 22k rpm (if I remember right, I only have 16k and run them at that all the time)

Probably a similar trade-off for other stuff.

 

[Rstewart]

The ripper mills are aluminum. One good crash or a thrown part and they're done.

On the other hand, you can spin them up to 22k rpm (if I remember right, I only have 16k and run them at that all the time)

Probably a similar trade-off for other stuff.

No they're not Aluminum.

At least the < 3." ones

 

[Hazzert]

Even Sandvik makes the century in an aluminum body tools so it's not entirely a gimmick. If you never machine anything harder than aluminum and plastics why waste the mass on a steel body?

 

[Captdave]

All the ripper mills we have are steel, and we have a few of them.

 

[DMF_TomB]

I see these 2 inch anodized aluminum face mill cutters that take the standard apkt1604 insert.

What is the purpose of these being made from aluminum? Seems you would need to throw it away after indexing inserts 3-4 times.

Does anybody here use one? Just curious really.

thanks

usually insert holder is steel although parts of a cutter could be made of aluminum. big boring bars for mills often use aluminum. they can be very heavy when all steel. literally over 50 lbs the bigger ones. only negative is size changes slightly more with temperature changes. with milling cutter normally not a problem a .0002" size change

 

[yardbird]

I could only imagine it's because they are cheaper. Just don't make sense to me. Seems they would definitely be disposable.

Brent

 

[dstryr]

Finishing work in aluminum so you can crank them up. I have 4 of the sandvik aluminum body century cutters and they only take finish passes.
10k rpm with PCD inserts taking .005

 

[Vancbiker]

They work fine for high speed aluminum cutting, roughing or finishing. Makino MAG series machines (32k rpm, 100+HP spindle) routinely use them. Not the APKT insert style though. IIRC, We had them from Mits, Sandvik and Ingersoll.

 

[LostFab]

Ran a 1" endmill style Rippers on my Haas for a few years without a problem, then had one pretty good crash and it never ran quite as true, but it definitely paid for itself.
I just got the 2" facemill style Ripper, excited to see what it will do on the Brother.

I assume most of them specify in the literature that they are only for cutting aluminum, the Ripper mills do at least.

 

[Corym]

Ran a 1" endmill style Rippers on my Haas for a few years without a problem, then had one pretty good crash and it never ran quite as true, but it definitely paid for itself.
I just got the 2" facemill style Ripper, excited to see what it will do on the Brother.

I assume most of them specify in the literature that they are only for cutting aluminum, the Ripper mills do at least.

To clarify, as posted above, neither of these tools are aluminum body. Both are steel.

 

[TeachMePlease]

Well, Sandvik seems to see some benefit to it.

Qbrick - Web TV

 

[Cole2534]

usually insert holder is steel although parts of a cutter could be made of aluminum. big boring bars for mills often use aluminum. they can be very heavy when all steel. literally over 50 lbs the bigger ones. only negative is size changes slightly more with temperature changes. with milling cutter normally not a problem a .0002" size change

Even with it being 1/3 the stiffness?

 

[Jashley73]

I would imagine that the aluminum would have less mass, which means faster accel/decel from Zero to Max RPM & back... That would be a big deal in high volume, near-net-shape automotive production parts.

 

[DMF_TomB]

Even with it being 1/3 the stiffness?

.
picture of aluminum and steel boring bar
.
it works ok, with temperature changes it can vary .0002"
.
insert is held by steel part. since boring bars can be heavy like literally heavy to pick up i do not mind at all some aluminum used