Endmills. Price vs Performance vs Life

Just curious what the pro's opinions are on endmill brands.

Specifically for aluminum but also in general.

What do you think of YG vs. GARR for lifespan?

Whats your preference in order of best cuts + lifespan?

Cheers,

Niagara makes a really nice aluminum endmill, but also not the cheapest endmill I have used. I have used YG and Garr but not enough to have an opinion.

Destiny here very satisfied,
On a side note sales guy told me
Robb jack will out do vipers,
Anyone have any thoughts.

I've used Garr, but not on aluminum.

They're ok. And for the price, they're slightly above OK.

But they wouldn't be my first choice for anything.

Then again, I don't have to pay for the tools.

Price vs wear you cant beat accupro. Especially in aluminium.

I really like 3 flute Accupro from MSC for aluminum.

My theory, although aluminum doesn't too much apply because the tool life is good with basically anything. We mostly do low volume parts a lot of stainless, for those I buy budget endmills and start with a new one on every job instead of having to house a bunch of half worn out tooling/ endmill shitting out halfway through etc. On higher volume jobs I try to buy the best endmills available.

Carbide....Imco was great

Niagara TIN coated high speed steel

It's been years since I've done aluminum but Accupro endmills work pretty good though I really liked the ones Iscar made. From what I remember once the coating on the Accupro wore off you had to start looking out for galling on the end mill, where as with Iscar's I could run the same endmill for over a solid week.


For steels I prefer MA Ford endmills. YG hold up ok if you aren't pushing them and everything is in prime condition, but utterly fail when things aren't perfect or want to push things. We recently did a few tests with endmills and MA Ford came out on top with Niagra a close second just because we could get the MA Ford's a bit cheaper, though they had near identical life. Although the MA Fords cost about 30% more up front over the YG, the amount we saved per part with higher feed and improved tool life more than made up for it.

I have done a few tests with Kennametal's Harvi endmill I wasn't able to get enough data to make any good notes about it, however I will say given their price I don't think they give enough of a performance boost to put it over the MA Ford.

Poor Mitsubishi came in far behind since they didn't make an endmill that works well for our application and they cost much more than anyone else.

I have a TiCN coated 3-flute 2" LOC 1/2" diameter GARR that I have been using for roughing and finishing aluminum for years. No idea how many thousands of cut hours are on it. I bought it when I put my old Sharp in may garage and have been swapping it machine to machine since. It was a little picky about chatter until I found the nodes where it is stable. 7000rpm for roughing (0.035"-0.050" stepover, max depth I need, and 0.0035-0.006ipt) and 3800rpm for finishing with around 0.001-0.002" per tooth feed at 0.015-0.025" stepover.

I use GARR 5-flute in steel as well - I've got a1/2" diameter 2.25" LOC unit with a 0.030 radius that is my go-to for deeper bores or taller contours in steel. They also seem to get good tool life and usually I wear them out from helical boring first and they can just be end-sharpened.

For most steel, especially alloy and harder stuff (up to 50HRc or so) I really love the Kyocera SGS V-Carb 5-flutes in 1/2". They just run and run. Haven't had a need to look elsewhere.

I have used MA Ford and Niagara for smaller sizes in steel and aluminum but don't really track tool life with those.

I'm just starting to do production runs with Maritool DLC coated 3-flute end mills in aluminum. So far I love the performance and the prices are quite reasonable.

AgentStone said:

Specifically for aluminum but also in general.

What do you think of YG vs. GARR for lifespan?

Click to expand...

You can't go wrong with either one of those choices.
I'm partial to Garr just because I've been using them for so long and only in the last decade discovered YG-1.

plastikdreams said:

Price vs wear you cant beat accupro. Especially in aluminium.

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WHAT?

Accupro makes great cutters no doubt. But their price is crazy expensive. Compare a 1/2" ZrN Helical Solutions with a 1/2" Accupro and the price is 30-60% higher for Accupro. They are charging premium prices for middle of the road quality.

I have been very pleased with the toughness of the Harvi series from Kennametal in steel titantium and inconel. They really really don't chip. I accidentally rapided through a part (not 100% rapid) and the tool was fine. I was shocked. The tools just don't seem to break. I have some Harvi 3 6 flute end mills to test as well, but I expect similar performance.

In my old shop I had really good luck with Hanita variable helix cutters in 1020 and 4xxx steels.

I recently ran a job with a YG1 diamond like coating reduced shank in aluminum. The cut conditions were sub optimal (lots of chip recutting) and I was pushing that tool to the limit. It performed very good and is just like new. That coating really impressed me, and makes me want to invest in more DLC coated tools for aluminum.


Bang for buck in terms of Alu finishers hands down goes to YG1 uncoated Alupower. You can pay more for PCD yes but for the price these are great! Here is an example of finish I get straight off the machine


I still buy a lot of Helical and Harvey for a few reasons...Harvey has the widest selection of cut lengths, reaches and diameters and I get a lot of tools from them. Helical for general purpose stuff becasue it is priced good and the performance is good. Paying more is possible but how much performance gain will you get? Diamondback is an example. More expensive tool, better performance. I don't necessarily need that but there are plenty who do.

AJ H said:

I really like 3 flute Accupro from MSC for aluminum.

My theory, although aluminum doesn't too much apply because the tool life is good with basically anything. We mostly do low volume parts a lot of stainless, for those I buy budget endmills and start with a new one on every job instead of having to house a bunch of half worn out tooling/ endmill shitting out halfway through etc. On higher volume jobs I try to buy the best endmills available.

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Another here for Accupro 3 Flutes in aluminum. I specifically get the ZrN coated ones. Little bit more cost but i'd say longevity is better than the cost difference between uncoated and ZrN.

For roughing, Alumigators and a proper insert mill can do some work. Accupro has their near identical alumigators in their AST/ART lines. https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/15850183?rItem=15850183

I could care less for GARR. Never saw good performance.

@AJ-H Try Accupro variable helix AlTiN 4/5 flute endmills in steel. I can go to town with these guys and they last a long time. And they are hardly more expensive than their traditional 4 flute uncoated end mills. With a .187D x 1.00LOC variable helix 4 flutes, I was able to spin up to 10k rpm and use a trochoidal path to clear out a .250W x .500L x .900D slot in 304 in 60 seconds at full depth and air blast... And most folks don't know that AlTiN can perform with Air blast quite well. No thermal shocking as with coolant. Rip n Rip!

Rick Finsta said:

I have a TiCN coated 3-flute 2" LOC 1/2" diameter GARR that I have been using for roughing and finishing aluminum for years. No idea how many thousands of cut hours are on it. I bought it when I put my old Sharp in may garage and have been swapping it machine to machine since. It was a little picky about chatter until I found the nodes where it is stable. 7000rpm for roughing (0.035"-0.050" stepover, max depth I need, and 0.0035-0.006ipt) and 3800rpm for finishing with around 0.001-0.002" per tooth feed at 0.015-0.025" stepover.

I use GARR 5-flute in steel as well - I've got a1/2" diameter 2.25" LOC unit with a 0.030 radius that is my go-to for deeper bores or taller contours in steel. They also seem to get good tool life and usually I wear them out from helical boring first and they can just be end-sharpened.

For most steel, especially alloy and harder stuff (up to 50HRc or so) I really love the Kyocera SGS V-Carb 5-flutes in 1/2". They just run and run. Haven't had a need to look elsewhere.

I have used MA Ford and Niagara for smaller sizes in steel and aluminum but don't really track tool life with those.

I'm just starting to do production runs with Maritool DLC coated 3-flute end mills in aluminum. So far I love the performance and the prices are quite reasonable.

Click to expand...

I ended up with similar parameters trying to get my Garr 1/2 with 2LOC to stop chattering. I have since swapped to all YG1 for aluminum. Pretty close to the same price but I was able to run max rpm (12k) with the same chip load on this tool and it doesn't chatter and the finish is gorgeous.

metalmadness said:

WHAT?

Accupro makes great cutters no doubt. But their price is crazy expensive. Compare a 1/2" ZrN Helical Solutions with a 1/2" Accupro and the price is 30-60% higher for Accupro. They are charging premium prices for middle of the road quality.

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Dang, didn't realize the price difference. For whatever reason I always thought Helical would be more expensive. With our pricing figured into accupro from MSC, the savings is between 20-40%(40% on the 1/2" like you mentioned). That to me is insane. And I've always like Helical, they make a stout tool. Time to setup an account with them.

What is Helical's shipping times like?

Another one to consider is Duramill. I haven't much experience with their aluminum end mills but their WhisperKut for steels is crazy good.
One of the best variable helix end mills I've ever used.
I recently ran 30 parts with a 3/4" end mill at 2.75 d.o.c. in 4340pht 25 minutes in the cut per part, and after all parts were ran the end mill looked brand new. 900sfpm, 5% stepover and .008ipt.
There's a reason Sandvik bought them.

The Zrn Accupros I buy are within a dollar of the same spec from Helical Solutions....

I'm surprised of the accupro users above. Especially using ZrN coatings? No complaints?

In my experience, it seems they apply the coating with a yellow sharpie. Didn't seem to last long at all. But I suppose I haven't used them in a while. Maybe it's changed?

Johnhudson said:

Destiny here very satisfied,
On a side note sales guy told me
Robb jack will out do vipers,
Anyone have any thoughts.

Click to expand...

I've used Robbjack endmills on heat treated material and stainless. They are pricey but I've had the best results in surface finish, consistency and tool life.

AgentStone said:

Just curious what the pro's opinions are on endmill brands.

Specifically for aluminum but also in general.

What do you think of YG vs. GARR for lifespan?

Whats your preference in order of best cuts + lifespan?

Cheers,

Click to expand...

I am not really sure you have given enough information to really give you good information. Are you running them in a bench top manual machine or a 20k lbs machine. Also are you looking at hogging triple the diam deep or taking a .020 finish cut with a 1" endmill.
I use 4 different brands of endmills depending on what I am cutting and what machine.
Have a shop down the street runs lights out 24 hrs day and they swear by osg I think they are way too hard and brittle for what I do. In the other direction I gave him a couple nachi's and they started to pull more amps dulling or loading way to soon for him.

I don't cut much aluminum, but I've found Redline cutters about on par with Harvey and Helical, for a lower price.