Indexable milling tools for Alu

Hi folks,

After some advice as I step up into using my more capable machine (from a benchtop to a HAAS TM1). I know its not the most powerful or capable machine, but it suits me.

I am however after trying to clear material quicker (alu), and whilst the carbide endmill (3flt 10mm) works fine, its not particularly quick at clearing out material.

If I'm being honest I am lost between face mill, shell mill and a shear hog type cutter. All the codes the manufactures use confuse the hell out of me, and whilst I can see some for sale I'm not clear what inserts they take, and some come bare which would mean then finding inserts which would be another thing to do.

My guess is face mill is for just that, though some smaller ones may also be able to do some limited pockets, a shell mill seems smaller, but tends to need a seperate holder like a face mill, I'm not sure what the generic name for the shear hog like cutters are... but they seem to be most like what I am after.

If I could lay out what I'm after, and then you wise folks can give me advice on what you recommend.

I don't want a massive thing, as I'd like to use it for pockets as well as facing.

I'd like rotatable inserts with more than one cutting face, circles would be ideal to get more bang for my buck, but 3 or 4 sides would still be great. My thought process is, invest in a good tool with decent indexable cutters so that whilst I may pay more at first I will save in the cost of replacing solid carbide endmills, as well as improved productivity from being able to shift more than a 10mm endmill.

I have heard good stuff about SECO from searching on here, and others too, but I need to be able to order as a one off as I'm not a big company and just starting out. I'm also UK based if that makes a difference, so a more european flavour to the manufactures might make it easier?

Any advice gatefully received from folks who have been there and done it.

I have seen this which looks ok for the job but I think only has two faces per insert.

1x SECO Milling inserts XOMX1248TR-MD13 ,MK25 + 1x ERAX Shaft cutters D25mm | eBay

Also found this site if anyone has used them? This looks broadly suitable too

https://www.mscdirect.co.uk/SRN-20052E/SEARCH:KEYWORD/product.html


Thanks in advance

This is one of them that I have;
1-1/2 Inch Cutting Diameter, CAT 4 V-Flange 873615 - MSC
and then some inserts
EC1816 LD KC41M Grade Carbide Milling 1654649 - MSC
These are sharp high polish inserts that work amazing in aluminum. If treated well (dont run them into the vise jaws) they also seem to last forever.

Could also get that in 1" with 2 flutes. However, either of them will not get fully utilized on a TM1 mill. I run the 1-1/2" at my full 10k rpm and can push the load meter right up, it could spin faster yet. But they should prove very useful on your mill, and the finish they leave on the floor is almost mirror polish, I can see reflections in the stuff I do. Pretty mush run doc about .2" and max rpm and all the feed you can muster before the load meter pukes out.

There are other brands of similar tool, some call them ripper mills. But you want that shape of insert with a big corner radius, high positive rake and high polish finish.

JP Machining said:

This is one of them that I have;
1-1/2 Inch Cutting Diameter, CAT 4 V-Flange 873615 - MSC
and then some inserts
EC1816 LD KC41M Grade Carbide Milling 1654649 - MSC
These are sharp high polish inserts that work amazing in aluminum. If treated well (dont run them into the vise jaws) they also seem to last forever.

Could also get that in 1" with 2 flutes. However, either of them will not get fully utilized on a TM1 mill. I run the 1-1/2" at my full 10k rpm and can push the load meter right up, it could spin faster yet. But they should prove very useful on your mill, and the finish they leave on the floor is almost mirror polish, I can see reflections in the stuff I do. Pretty mush run doc about .2" and max rpm and all the feed you can muster before the load meter pukes out.

There are other brands of similar tool, some call them ripper mills. But you want that shape of insert with a big corner radius, high positive rake and high polish finish.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I can get 6000rpm on the TM1, so quite a way off you, but I will take a look at them.

Both those you linked too are for steel, the second is for high feed machining of stainless.

If you are looking at Seco,
1.9685 Inch Cutting Diameter, .3937 Inch 4957858 - MSC
this style is what you want for Aluminium.

When you take a light finish pass this is what you can get with a tool like that on the floor. Still want a good carbide endmill to clean the sides up. I usually leave .020" on the sides and then 1 pass with a aluminum specific endmill.

This is right off the machine. (VF4) You can see my hands and the phone taking the pic in the reflection.

I work for Seco. The cutter that Twiglet linked to, is very useful for aluminum, but may be overkill for your machine. Those cutters are for aluminum & non-ferrous materials only, and they have keys on the back of the insert to lock them into the cutter body, to keep from tossing the inserts at cray high RPM. (Like 30-40,000 rpm)

Our TURBO line is a very good choice. These are available in a variety of grades & edge preps, so you can swap inserts and cut aluminum, to cast-iron, to steel and then hi-temp super-alloys all with the same cutter. The aluminum inserts have a very sharp edge geometry, and should perform very well for you.
https://www.seco.tools/#article/m_5171

We have a 4 sided insert - our Square-T4 insert, although we don't have an uncoated grade specifically for aluminum. We have a couple PVD coated grades that would do OK, but not as well as sharp cutters do in sticky, gummy aluminum.
https://www.seco.tools/#article/m_5173

Twiglet said:

Both those you linked too are for steel, the second is for high feed machining of stainless.

If you are looking at Seco,
1.9685 Inch Cutting Diameter, .3937 Inch 4957858 - MSC
this style is what you want for Aluminium.

Click to expand...

Wrong. Those are high positive made for aluminum.

We use the Korloy Rippers. The kits are dirt cheap, and the tools work great. I haven't used the ones JP linked to so I can't say if they are better or not.

Pro-X 1" Kit – CarbideCart.com

For indexables and aluminum, my go-to is Mitsubishi Carbide.
IMO nothing beats them in aluminum.

We used to use some of the Seco tools, and they worked very well for moving large amounts of material. Don't quote me on this, but I think we had a 3/4" and a 1". The only downside (or maybe upside) is that the large companies like Seco have so many options for tool bodies and inserts I quite frankly got so damn confused I gave up. I really don't want to mess around and order the wrong inserts and not have them suit my cutting needs. This isn't such a problem in the large shops where the tooling rep will come in and say, try this one with this insert and if you don't like it I'll take it back.

For my uses (predominately aluminum prototypes and short run production on Haas machines), I have had good luck with the 1" Ripper from Korloy.

1 INCH RIPPER MILL

I run it as fast as it can go, .150" deep. It leaves a decent finish, but I usually use it for roughing.

For a true face mill, I like the 2" from Techniks. I got one free when I ordered a bunch of tool holders one time, and it happened to work out great.

SFM45-2.00C-.750-4-13

Techniks ShrinkMILL 45 Degree Face Mills

My guess is there are better options out there, but these work for me, so I see no need to spend more money experimenting.

You should be able to rip aluminum with a good carbide end mills even with that machine. What feed/speed are you running

We have a 06 Haas TM1 in our shop at it isn't a toy, infact we've never had a service call on it. It's a work horse. Like yours, 6000rpm w/400" cutting and you can do some work with it. Mitsubishi has a deal right now where you buy a cutter body and get 20 free inserts(your choice). We have the 3/4", so we bought the 1-1/4 set for around $150.00. Just can't beat that. APKT inserts and bodies are widely available that are very affordable.

I would highly recommend the Destiny Tool viper line up for good carbide for aluminum:
Viper DVH - Destiny Tool

For a while, the only mill I had had a 4000 rpm 7.5 HP spindle. With a 1/2 viper, I was able to easily hit 100 ipm at 4000 rpm taking a fairly good cut. Keep in mind, there was very little rigidity with this mill either. I have a shear hog now and I love it, but I feel that a good 3/8" or 1/2" endmill would hang right with, if not out perform it in that situation. If you really want something to rip in aluminum, you could try the destiny diamondback. However, with only 6000 rpm you probably will not see too much improvment with it.

And as far as a face mill, I'll go ahead and +1 the recommendation for Mitsubishi. Their WSX is very hard to beat and aluminum on both material removal and mirror finishes.

mtlhe said:

APKT inserts and bodies are widely available that are very affordable.

Click to expand...

There's a reason they're cheap.... they suck. The ripper mill style tools are tons better in aluminum and there are many better choices for steel as well.

Mtndew said:

For indexables and aluminum, my go-to is Mitsubishi Carbide.
IMO nothing beats them in aluminum.

Click to expand...

We're sold, after seeing what we can do with our AXD4000 we're looking at picking up some smaller bodies down from our 2".

I shared these parameters last week but 8000 rpm, 1.4" WoC, 3/8 deep, 240 ipm on a 10 horse machine using every last pony she had but pulling a theoretical 126 in^2/min.

For pure metal removal rates, (in my opinion) nothing can beat a good carbide 1/2" EM buried to it's max depth. I absolutely love a 1/2" EM sunk down 1" in aluminum with those long, quite chips pelting the side of the machine. It sounds like dollar bills hitting the side of the machine. I can push the corn cob endmills a bit harder, but the chips are a pain to deal with. I used to love the sound of a shear hog whipping around a part. That machine gun chatter of chips hitting the plexi, but after a bunch of years, I realized they was just noisy... not really fast. I only use Rippers (or shear hogs) when I need to remove a lot of material in a shallow sort of manner, like the high speed 3D roughing routines. If I can use more flute than .125" in the Z, I never use them.

Everyone needs a facemill and a good 1/2" EM... there you have 90+% of my material removal, and finishing. It's like Tincup playing the entire course with a 7 iron.

For aluminum, especially on your machine, I doubt you are going to see any difference in performance no matter who you use. It seems like everbody makes a decent aluminum cutter. I've used: Seco, Sandvik, Ingersoll, Harroun, Iscar, probably some others. I don't recall disliking any of them.

I would recommend picking a cutter family that uses the same insert that can go in various diameter tools. I insert in stock for all your aluminum cutters.

As far as catalogs being confusing. Call the tool rep and tell them what you need/want. That's their job. Go make chips

I like my Sandvik 390 on a C5 Capto back end but a standard side lock 390 would work at your rpm just fine.

Indexable high shear inserts for aluminum promo

I have a company promo going with Tungaloy on their High Shear indexable tooling


Call or email me
Buy 10 inserts and get a free holder in certain sizes. Made in Japan

For me and bang for my hard come by buck, it's the Korloy ripper,.....and the inserts are available in a wide range of radii.