Buying Guide: Four Things to Know About Milling Cutter ...

One of the most commonly used of all milling cutters is the end mill. Solid carbide, indexable, and modular versions are available, as are ones with square, ball, and radiused cutting ends. They are used to machine slots and shoulders, mill pockets, and cut the inner and outer perimeters of various part features. As suggested earlier, some end mills have center-cutting capabilities, allowing them to plunge like a drill or ramp into a workpiece surface.

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Shell mills or shoulder mills can be thought of as an end mill's larger, heftier cousin. They cannot plunge or ramp, but they can remove large amounts of material quickly. Due to their large size, most are indexable, often filled with dozens of carbide inserts. So are face mills, modern, multi-fluted versions of the venerable fly mill that opened this article, used to true up horizontal surfaces and make them both smooth and flat. And copy mills are similar in shape and function to ball-nosed end mills. These are a favorite of moldmaking shops, which use them to rough out large cavities before finishing with a solid carbide or modular end mill.

There's some overlap between all of these. For example, it's no problem using an end mill to machine the top surface of a small metal workpiece, but the wider and longer that surface becomes, the more reason there is to use a face mill. And some face mills can be used to cut square shoulders like a shoulder mill would, provided that shoulder is fairly shallow in depth. As stated previously, theres a huge variety of milling cutters out there. The trick is knowing which one to use and how to apply it.