End mills in a drill press

don't buy endmills from Grizzly
their milling machines are reasonably decent, but the endmill cutters are crap.buy endmills from Rutland or Enco

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I just had a random thought. You could go to the store, drop a buck or two for a plain jane bit, grind the tip square and see if that would work to square off the bottom. I know there is no real sharpened edge per se but it might just work to square the bottom of the hole. No I have not tried that but why not? It would only cost you a buck or two, and if it worked then great.
 
The flat drill will work especially of he sharpens it. Hey he wants to botom out holes in nickel silver. Not steel.
 
Just grind the bit end flat (don't let it get hot) and then make opposing bevels at about 15 degrees.That will make the bit a flat bottom bit.
Stacy
 
Jantz supply has 3/16" shank end mills in 1/16", 3/32",1/8",5/32" and 3/16" that will work just fine for what you need in nickle silver, brass, G10, carbon fiber or probably in titanium for flat bottoming holes. Not sure of life expectancy with these because at $11.95 each it makes me wonder but they may be better than the price indicates. For what you need I'm sure they'd be fine. 1800-351-8900

STR
 
gixxer said:
I was using my drill press for side milling, and the bearings got wore out. Now when I run my drill press at high speed it runs real loud and I have a lot of side to side play. All of my pieces have to be centerpunched or the bit will wander pretty bad.

But, like others have said they have had no problems with this. Anyhow you said you are making flat bottomed holes so side pressure is a non issue for you.
Click to expand...

The bearings in a drill press are made to carry loads that are parallel to the shaft, but do not handle loads perpendicular to the shaft very well. The amount of "side" (perpendicular) that a drill press bearing can handle will be about 10% of the load that it can handle straight up and down. If you exceed that 10%, for instance, taking the side loading to 20% of the up and down load, it will reduce the life of the bearings by 90%.

Basically, the following applies to speeds and loads on a bearing:

2X speed = 1/2 life
2X load = 1/10 life

The bearings in a mill are designed to handle much more side/perpendicular loading, thus they don't crap out so easily.

Now, for the information that relates to us and our drill presses.

Can you use a drill press like a mill and put a side load on it?
Yes, as long as you go very slowly and don't try to hog out material. Keep the loading light, and you'll probably be ok.
 
One thing about milling in a drill press has not been mentioned. Do it this way and you don't need to worry about excessive wear.

Use ONLY the end of the end mill for cutting. Set the depth of the cut and feed vertically, advancing between 7% and 10% of the diameter of the end mill with each cut. Then, holding the end mill at the bottom of the cut, traverse back and forth over the surface. You can advance the end mill an extra .001" or .002" for this step if needed.

If you use an end mill this way you can resharpen the end to 90 degrees rather than the 92 degrees used by the manufacturer. The slight cone-shaped end recess is needed only if you are doing side cutting.

Incidentally, if you want an end mill in an odd size, just sharpen a twist drill using the router bit setting of your drill grinding jig. This produces a point that is the mirror image of a commercial end mill--that is, an angle of 88 degrees. Works great for slotting but not good if you need perfectly true surfacing.
 
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