Throwaway milling cutters

[MarinusK]

Hi all,

While looking through my Cromwell's catalogue, I noticed that there are "throwaway" Kennedy milling cutters for fairly cheap. I really don't know what is meant with "throwaway", because if you don't have a cutter grinder, you just throw them away in anyway! Or at least recycle them to make another tool of some sort. I don't have the money to buy expensive cutters so would like to give these a try.

Any thoughts on if these would be suitable for light machining duties?

Marinus

 

[Blogwitch]

Marinus,

Usually, the 'throw away' cutters are designed for CNC use, normally called 'Weldon shank' with a slight flat on the shank, but can easily be held in your normal milling cutter holder or collet, one that takes a plain shank.

They usually come as three flute centre cutting slot drill/end mill design and usually work very well, especially at the higher speeds/smaller cutter designed for CNC work.

If you are just after cheap cutters, then I have used Richon now for many years and even though the smaller diameters can be a little fragile if pushed too much, almost anything above 6mm can really be used rather well, being robust and sharp.

http://www.richontools.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=15&zenid=1174da3fad8a4aca853a490fbec6649c

Hope this helps

John

 

[Cogsy]

I'm with John. I followed his recommendation a couple of years ago and tried Richon endmills - now they're all I use. They do a great job and I don't feel too bad when I do something silly and wreck a cutter as it's only a couple of bucks.