Blue chips

[TomG]

Feed on a mill like yours, or pretty much any knee mill is by feel. You can go through the exercise of calculating chip load, but it's meaningless if all you have is a hand crank or a variable rate power feed. Just set the rpm based on material type and cutter diameter adjust your feed based on the color of the chip (for steel) and the sound of the mill. If you are getting blue chips or the mill is screaming at you and jumping around, then slow down the feed rate or reduce the depth of cut.

If you were using a 1/2" end mill with cuts that light and getting blue chips, either your end mills were dull or you weren't cutting 1018. And the fact that you damaged a new Niagara cutter with it pretty much makes it a slam dunk.

Tom