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'Rogue Systems Inc' Carbide Cutting Tools - Experiences?

Johnny SolidWorks

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Apr 2, 2013
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Rochester
Hey Gang - These guys: 'Rogue Systems Inc' - sell a bunch of carbide tooling on eBay, and claim to be a fully automated 2-man shop based in 'So. Oregon'

Anyone happen to know them? Are they the real deal, or just re-selling Chinese crap? I can't find a website, they don't show up in web searches, and the prices just seem way too low to be quality stuff. I have a sneaking suspicion the shop only exists in the owner's mind...But I've been wrong before.
 
I couldn't find anything outside of ebay so I wouldn't even chance it. I'd just stick to Maritool for only carbide. At least there is a stand up company behind the name.
 
Hey Gang - These guys: 'Rogue Systems Inc' - sell a bunch of carbide tooling on eBay, and claim to be a fully automated 2-man shop based in 'So. Oregon'

Anyone happen to know them? Are they the real deal, or just re-selling Chinese crap? I can't find a website, they don't show up in web searches, and the prices just seem way too low to be quality stuff. I have a sneaking suspicion the shop only exists in the owner's mind...But I've been wrong before.

Care to point a link to ebay? I wasn't able to find anything.
(On hobby scale the chinese solid carbide endmills from ebay seem suprisingly good considering that chinese hss endmills are totally absolutely rubbish even on hobby use.)

Anyone stup...brave enough to try 8 usd TiAlN coated 8mm solid carbide endmill on a CNC?
Of course you wont get vari-flutes or anything else for that price
 
Care to point a link to ebay? I wasn't able to find anything.
(On hobby scale the chinese solid carbide endmills from ebay seem suprisingly good considering that chinese hss endmills are totally absolutely rubbish even on hobby use.)

Anyone stup...brave enough to try 8 usd TiAlN coated 8mm solid carbide endmill on a CNC?
Of course you wont get vari-flutes or anything else for that price

Here's a 3/8" 3 FL, solid carbide w/ 1" flute length for $19

NEW 3/8" AlumaCut 3 Flute Carbide End Mill 1" Cut for Hi-Speed Aluminum USA Made | eBay
 
Looking at their prices I'm honestly not sure how they're making a go of it. My only guess is they're trying to build a customer base and a price increase will follow eventually. carbide prices are down from a few years back but it can't be that cheap is it?
 
I have bought from them. Ship same day. Tools seemed fine. But run on 2 axis cnc mill. No coolant, r8 spindle. So I Do not push hard. Ran once on vf3. Tool life, removal rate, finish in line with house brand from msc or any other standard carbide supplier.

Equal to destiny tools best offering? Hell no. But look at price.
 
Looking at their prices I'm honestly not sure how they're making a go of it. My only guess is they're trying to build a customer base and a price increase will follow eventually. carbide prices are down from a few years back but it can't be that cheap is it?
Chinese carbide endmills are maybe half of their prices so maybe if they have automated the process enough there is still money to be made iven on american soil.
 
You can get a 3/8 yg-1 alu power carbide hi helix 3 flute for $17.50 and you know what your getting.. And they are stupid sharp and polished.
 
I have bought a set of #3 carbide center drills from them back in April, super sharp and don't appear to be chinese rubbish. IMO, they're relatively cheap compared to similar items on ebay so I can see why one would think it's chinese carbide. I haven't had any issues so far so I would recommend them.
 
I have a few of their plain carbide 1/2", standard-length, 4fl end mills. They are superior to the cheap offshore stuff and don't look like repackaged Chinesium tool.

Since they are not bright carbide and don't have the higher helix angles appropriate for aluminum, I would suggest that YG-1 alu-power that Wsurfer mentioned as a low cost tool for aluminum before using the Rogue stuff in that material.

For general purpose work on a manual machine or for single part setups, the Rogue milling cutters work just fine.
I can't say these are a high-end / premium cutting tool, or well suited for high volume CNC work. They are good for the price point if you need a plain un-coated tool.

I can't say anything about their coated stuff. I don't know what they offer, haven't looked and I haven't tried any of it.


The other product I ordered from Rogue is their uncoated spotting drill. I ordered a package of four or five and have one in the magazine in my VMC.
I like them and have had no trouble using them to spot drill when hole locations are critical.
 
I have bought from them a few times. Mainly small stuff under 1/8" but every time I received them fast and they were well priced for the performance.

On one order they were short 1 1/32" single sided ball end mill in their inventory so they sent me 4 1/32" double sided end mills as a "sorry we were out of stock" message.

Seem like good guys and I'd recommend them.
 
Looking at their prices I'm honestly not sure how they're making a go of it.

You do realize that the $40 end mill you buy at _local_tooling_supplier has a 50% markup on it, right? You're paying the retailer half the cost of that end mill for the privilege of buying it from them, and you're still getting a $20 end mill?
 
Their pricing isnt mind blowing. Its good compared to most. Right now my company is selling 1/2"×1"×3" 4 flute 30 deg helix with altin coat for $24 each and making a normal margin on it. The carbide(I think) is USA but it is ground in USA by CGS in Ohio. So if these guys are grinding these tools hemselves they are probably making 50% on them in terms of margin on the sale.
 
You do realize that the $40 end mill you buy at _local_tooling_supplier has a 50% markup on it, right? You're paying the retailer half the cost of that end mill for the privilege of buying it from them, and you're still getting a $20 end mill?

Ummmmm, not quite... :scratchchin:
 
......
Of course you wont get vari-flutes or anything else for that price

Since the cnc machine could care less about grinding a vari or a standard and the cycle time is the same why is there a price difference?

A very big deal in this racket is volume and quantities sold in.
The cost of processing orders, pack and ship, inventories carried and engineering support become just as important to pricing. Maybe more so than manufacturing time.

I see nothing that makes me think these guys are not honest.
Bob
 
I just want to mention that Crap can come out of many other places besides China.


I love to buy Made In USA, but has to be a reason aside from its made here.

I make Made In USA and if I need to buy Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German or Swiss products to make my business model better, to keep work flowing through my doors...then so be it that is the direction I take.

A few years ago I was very cash tight...running manual 316SS job needing lots 3/4 HSS endmills. US and major brands were silly pricey lasting 1-2 pcs. I just decided to buy a batch from Enco (Cheap Chinese Crap). They were super cheap, less then 1/3 what I was paying...figured maybe I could use to rough or... I bought a dozen, I'll be damned if I didn't get 3-4 out of most of those mills...granted a couple popped an edge almost immediately and the finished and size left a little to be desired...but for the application it was more then adequate.
 
Since the cnc machine could care less about grinding a vari or a standard and the cycle time is the same why is there a price difference?

Bob
Product differentiation or whatever then?

I'd rather get vari flutes if the price is same but Chinese sellers (ebay/aliexpress) don't have any for some reason. Could be that they cater mostly for the hobby guys?(just like me)


Cheapest 6mm TiAlN coated solid carbide end mills are about 2 usd per piece. Cheapest usable 6 mm HSS endmills are more like 12usd per piece for me.
MSC "list price" for cheapest TiAlN coated endmill seem to be about 20 times that. :eek:

I'm curious if these 2 usd end mills are quality rejects, black market or what?
Out of 2 dozens of these cheapies there has been one very obvious dud, the end mill was split axially right out of the package!
 








 
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