Milling is very common in production and is the main methods of machining. Milling not only can process planes, grooves, steps, but also other forming surfaces such as splines and threads. As a multi-blade tool, the milling cutter has a high milling speed and no free travel, so it is a highly efficient cutting method.
In the production process, we often use these tools, such as flat end mill, end milling cutter, ball end mill, annular cutter, cylindrical milling cutter, conical milling cutter and etc. Now we introduce these tools one by one.
The flat end mill is easy to produce, and mainly cutting with peripheral cutting edges. And it has good cutting performance. It is the main tool for face milling and 2D parts, also the main tool for roughing rough contours. And can machining the 3D solid contours.
The end mill is mainly for multi-coordinate milling of large-area plane milling and relatively flat solid contours to reduce the number of passes. In order to improve machining efficiency and surface quality.
Ball end mills have a hemispherical tip used to machine rounded details, such as the metal bearing grooves found in machines. Also called ball nose end mills, they are used extensively in manufacturing tools & dies, and machining complex three dimensional contours with a smooth finish. Ball end mills are very durable, and come with an array of surface coatings tailored for milling a wide range of materials, from plastics to titanium and steel alloys.Therefore, the ball-end knife has a strong adaptability to the processing object, and is easy to program and use.
The annular cutter is a small arc transition between the peripheral cutting edges. It is mainly for plane milling and solid contour machining of grooves, flat-bottom cavities, etc. Its process characteristics are similar to those of flat end mills, and with good cutting performance.
Cylindrical milling cutter is profile sharpened cutters having teeth on peripheral surface only. And it produce relatively flat surface parallel to axis of rotation. Using it for three-coordinate machining of the surface of the part mounting bevel. The use of cylindrical milling cutter is a workaround to replace multi-coordinate machining in single or small batch production. Therefore, it not only has a certain adaptability to the variation of the inclination angle on the surface. But also can effectively reduce the number of passes and improve the processing efficiency and surface quality.
The application of the conical milling cutter is similar to that of the cylindrical milling cutter. On a three-coordinate machine, it can replace the inclined surface on the part and the mounting surface of the multi-axis side milling. Especially when the tilt angle is fixed, it can be molded at one time. And the inner edge surface can be processed.
