Online Carbide Has The Best End Mills For Aluminum
by Anthony Williams on November 29, 2019
While machining harder materials like steel can but some serious wear on your end mills, people often underestimate how difficult machining soft aluminum can be. If you go into an aluminum milling project without the correct cutting tools, you may damage both your cutter and your workpiece. We have looked at the challenges aluminum can pose and have created the Best End Mills For Aluminum in order to help our customers machine with ease.
Here at Online Carbide, we are dedicated to providing our customers with top of the line carbide cutting tools. We use the same high-quality solid carbide stock as other industry leaders, we never offer carbide coated or tipped tools. We use robot fed 5 axis CNC grinders to produce our cutting tools to precise tolerances. This helps ensure that every tool we sell will perform as expected. We also only sell directly to our customers. These manufacturer direct prices will help you avoid the mark up that most stores put on cutting tools after purchasing them from the manufacturer.
There are several aspects of aluminum that can make it a tricky material to machine. The biggest concern when working with aluminum stems from the small chips that are produced. The chips from aluminum are so small they are basically a powder. This means that if the chips are difficult to evacuate from the cutting area. If too much aluminum powder builds up about your cutter, it can easily start to cake up back into a solid mass. If this occurs it can severely damage your end mill.
In order to help with chip evacuation, the best end mills for aluminum will have a lower flute count compared to tools for steel. This gives the chips more room to evacuate. We make our end mills using a 37-degree helix angle which is also intended to increase the evacuation rate. These features make it much easier to work on aluminum without worrying about unexpected tool failure.
The final feature that makes our end mills the best end mills for aluminum is the coating. We coat all of our tools intended for aluminum with a layer of zirconium nitride. This is a golden-colored ceramic coating that has extremely low surface friction, making it harder for chips to stick. It also helps to greatly increase the life of tools by protecting the tool’s cutting surfaces.
If you work in a shop that regularly deals with machining aluminum, you know how important it is to attack every job with the right tools. If you’re ready to upgrade to the best end mills for aluminum, it's time to visit us at Online Carbide. If you have any questions about our end mills for aluminum or any of our other products, feel free to contact a member of our team at [email protected] or call us weekdays between 8-5 CST at 630-238-1424.