The number of flutes on a carbide end mill significantly influences its performance across various machining applications. How many flutes do you need? The simple answer: It depends. Obviously there are a quite a number of other factors that impact an end mills performance such as helix angel, edge prep, gullet depth and radius. We can't tackle everything in this article, but hopefully this helps you get a better understanding of why there are different numbers of flutes on end mills. Below is an overview of the advantages and disadvantages associated with end mills featuring different flute counts, along with recommendations for materials based on ISO 513 categories (P, M, K, N, S, H) Single Flute End Mills
2-Flute End Mills
3-Flute End Mills
4-Flute End Mills
5-Flute End Mills
6-Flute End Mills
7-Flute End Mills
8-Flute End Mills
0-Flute End Mills
Advantages of Higher Flute Counts in |
Much of this burden falls on the holder. Balance doesn’t change as spindle speed increases, however the forces it creates increase exponentially alongside speed. The impacting results appear quickly in micromachining. When runout occurs, the edge most affected takes over the bulk of the cutting. Uneven wear causes the tool to fail more quickly than if the tool rotates about the centerline as intended. In one customer application, we found that drilling into a steel workpiece 0.590" deep with a 0.118" diameter carbide drill in a holder with 0.00008" runout accuracy produced 2,300 holes. |
Super-chilled CO2 or cryogenic machining with liquid nitrogen are considered possible replacements. Protecting small holder parts at the nose from coolant has always been a concern, but using gas requires more attention for holders to be effective. |
An argument can be made for balancing almost every tool put in a machine. In the world of rotating tools, small changes to an assembly, like a new cutting tool, collet, nut or retention knob, can put an assembly out of tolerance. Therefore, it stands to reason that any unbalance could translate to the part, tooling and/or machine spindle in harmful ways. You’ll hear the case for balancing every single tool based on the long-standing ISO 1940-1 standard. |
In other words, if you’re rough milling with a heavy radial cut, the different forces will start bending the tool. When that happens, the cutting forces and all the feed forces will be substantially higher than whatever the unbalance forces might be. If that’s the case, it’s not that you take the unbalance force and add it to the cutting force and find your adjustment. |
Auto-balancing boring heads are designed specifically for the high-speed finishing I mentioned earlier, where unbalance force can be greater than cutting force. Our EWB boring heads, for instance, have a small internal counterweight that moves in direct proportion with each adjustment. Because the weight is carbide, it’s three times more dense than the steel in the tool carrier and is maintained inside the head’s symmetrical body. |
Our technical section is written by several different people. Sometimes, it's from our team here at Next Generation Tooling & at other times it's by one of the innovative manufacturer's we represent in California and Nevada.
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