Plunge Cut With Ball End Mill
Compression end mills combine the best of both worlds and produce a smooth surface on both ends of the workpiece when cutting.
Plunge cut with ball end mill. Plunge milling operations vary considerably from traditional milling. You can not plunge an end mill into material like you would a drill bit. This is due to cutting flutes that extend to and protrude from the end face and enable plunge cutting. Additionally most mills are center cutting meaning they are able to cut both axially and laterally.
They use the end of the tool to cut instead of the periphery which beneficially changes the cutting forces from a predominantly radial to axial direction. It can be compared to a boring operation with interrupted cuts. High quality 2 flute slot drills up cut and down cut end mills. Keep in mind that end mills are meant to cut from the side whereas drills are meant to cut vertically.
Plunge rate this is the speed at which the bit enters the wood. For most woods i usually set the plunge rate to 10 mmsec or less. For hardwoods plywood and aluminium. To minimize tool breakage and stress on the material being cut most cnc software will ramp the end mill slowly into.
So what type of end mills do you require for general milling applications. Square end mills are used for general milling applications including slotting profiling and plunge cutting. Starter pack end mills. 1 1 2 cut diam 0 118 max depth of cut 1 1 4 shank diam indexable plunge end mill straight shank uses htp lnht 1006 insert style htp ln10 toolholder style through coolant.