Heard a guy at the sharpening shop say you should never climb mill with a carbide endmill

I've been climb milling for years and never had a problem, but he was talking about how the interrupted cut on certain alloys will chip the edge and I finally get what he meant. Has anyone else ever snapped a carbide tool doing something they thought was routine?

2 comments

2 Comments

noranguyen14d ago

That backlash thing is sneaky - on your older mill, what kind of tolerance are you seeing in the table movement before it grabs?

mary_patel5914d ago

Blew up a 1/2" carbide endmill climb milling 4140 once. Thought I was doing everything right, but the machine had just enough backlash that it grabbed the cut and snapped the tool clean off. Lost a part and an expensive tool in one second. Now I always check my machine's condition first, especially on older mills. Anything with interrupted cuts or tough alloys, I'll take the extra time to conventional mill for the first pass.