Making a duck call jig

[TomG]

It looks like you may have hurt your HSS end mill. It should be producing a beautiful finish on that steel, but the cutting speed has to be kept around 60SFPM for a HSS end mill, or it will burn up. Coolant or oil are a good idea as well.

Sawing out the piece was good. It's temping to mill it out, but that's not very efficient. You need to be careful with cutting speed on the saw as well or that pre-hard will kill the blade. It should be 60SFPM there too (with coolant).

How are you planning to cut the slot?

Tom