Deciding on a tool

[EdK]

Ah, thanks Tom. I'm confusing my keys I think.

Ed

[Mayhem]

Would the straight tooth milling cutter in question only be used with a horizontal mill, or are there applications where one would be used in a vertical mill (excluding the use of a horizontal attachment of course)? I see them and assume they would be horizontal only.

[TomG]

Darren,

A straight tooth milling cutter, or any milling cutter for that matter can be used on a horizontal or vertical milling machine, it just needs to be mounted on an appropriate arbor. The cutter shown might be a good choice to mill a slot in the side of a part that is difficult or too large to fixture any other way than flat on the table. The problem you run into using milling cutters on a vertical mill is rigidity. Since there is no arbor support in the vertical orientation, larger cutters will be more apt to chatter when used on a vertical vs. a horizontal mill. On the other side of the coin, end mills can also be used on a horizontal mill for the same reasons. All you need is an appropriate size tool holder.

Tom

[Mayhem]

Thanks Tom

[PixMan]

Well explained, TomG. Spot on.

When using a straight tooth milling cutter in that vertical mill fashion (the R8 arbor shown in post #10), there's a lot of "holder" below the cutter so you can't get very close to the table or vise. There's a "Peterson Tool" flush milling arbor avalable, but they are hard to find and very spendy. I've only seen them in NMTB40 and NMTB50 tapers.