Roughing mills

Being fairly new at milling I have a question for the experts or those that maybe aren't so expert. What is the advantage of roughing mills as opposed to a regular mill cutter? I have a HF mini-mill (boat anchor to some on this forum) and wondering if a roughing mill would work on this type of underpowered mill?

The advantage is they will hog away a lot more material a lot faster than a convential mill cutter. The disadvantage is surface finish and dimentional accuracy. They will work on a mini mill, but a mini mill is not generally considered to be a production mill, and high production is where roughers are the greatest benifit. You can't really expect better than a 500 finish with a rougher, so the obvious use is to remove a lot of metal, then follow up with a finish end mill to size.

The biggest reason that the roughers can remove more material is that they break the chips. A rougher also requires a lot of rigidity to work correctly.

IMO, they are a waste on a BP. Yeah, there are some applications on a BP where they might be worthwhile, but overall, you need more HP and rigidity than a BP has.

JR

The reason a rougher can hog faster is that they interupt the cutting surface. You get less contact on the cutting edges so you increase your feed rate. You also get a bunch of little chips rather than ones that match the lenth of your cut. You can always
crank a bit faster with a rougher but the finish is named after the end mills. They will also cut a bit cooler. They are good for what the name says.

I have used a RF-30 size Mill drill for over 20 years and literally thousands of hours, and roughers have a place on this lighter equipment. If you occasionally have to run deep slots or remove a lot of material to hog out a shape, the hog mill will let you move more metal with less stress on the lightweight machine. It makes the whole process faster and less nerve-wracking.

You might not be able to use the tool any where near its limits as others have noted; but it can help increase the limits and productivity of your machine.

One caveat, though: Hog mills are generally cobalt. They will run longer at higher speeds than HSS, _BUT_ they are more brittle than HSS. So they help by reducing stress in a less than completely rigid machine; but, if you push them hard enough to deflect the machine, they are easier to snap (in the small sizes).

smt

Try both, see which is better. That is your real test. Sometimes a finishing end mill will do better even though a roughing end mill seems to be the way to go. I have seen a lot of time wasted making little chips when you can make big chips.
Also, the quality of end mills varies a lot, depending on who makes them and how they were hardened and annealed. The same company can give you good end mills one time and crap the next depending on whether someone screwed up making the end mills (cheap labor substituting for expensive labor, whatever).

Find an equilibrium between all factors of today and its not necessarily repeatable the next time around.

Hi
Roughing end mills are created with a wide variety of pitch styles for roughing a large amount of woodworking. roughing end mills are used to remove large metals eliminate than the standard end mills.

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