Snapped a 1/4 inch end mill on a simple aluminum part today

Was running a light finish pass on a bracket for a machine shop in Cleveland. The tool grabbed some swarf and just snapped clean off at 10k RPM. Anyone else have a go-to brand for small end mills that can take a little abuse?

2 comments

2 Comments

grantl9418d agoMost Upvoted

YG-1 is solid" - yeah they take a beating way better than the fancy ones.

michael69318d ago

I mean, I wonder if the issue isn't the brand but the toolpath. On aluminum at 10k RPM, a 1/4 inch end mill is pushing a lot of heat into a tiny surface area. I've had better luck dropping the spindle speed to like 7-8k and bumping up the feed rate a bit to keep the chip load consistent. For small end mills, I've been using YG-1's carbide ones from a local supplier, they're not the flashiest but they've held up better than the name brand stuff on my little Haas. What RPM and feed were you running? That might tell you more than the tool itself.