Milling a busse (any machinists here?)

arcli9ht

arcli9ht

Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
188
So I'm wanting to put an edge on the butt of my Skinny ASH and BOSS Street for striking a firesteel against. I have a mini mill and I had a 3/8" endmill.

I started with the ASH and what I think was a HSS endmill. Didn't have cutting fluid, so I used cheap scotch (it was all I had at hand). Lined it all up, slowly moved the bit down as I poured Cutty Sark on the bit. There was lots of smoke and now I have a rounded off dull endmill. It did make it through the coating, but not even all the way through decarb. :mad::D

SO... What kind of endmill will I need to cut into INFI?

TiAlN?
Cobalt?
Carbide?
 
Your best bet is a surface grinder. I think with an endmill you're just gonna build a collection of broken tools.
 
It was because of the cheap scotch. Try Johnnie Walker Blue next time... ;)

:D
 
Thanks guys, putting in an order for some carbide and cutting fluid. If I break the carbide, I'll try to rig up a grinder.


Thanks!
 
Carbide chips so easily, even on metal that hasn't been heat treated already. Good luck!
 
Carbide endmill or carbide burr! Might be able to use a small cut off wheel on a die
grinder.
 
You might want to try a round file?

You are not trying to really re shape it, if I caught your reason for doing this. You want a place to use a striker.

You know, when I stripped my SS with stripper, there was already an edge on the rat tail piece at the back that was sharp enough to throw sparks. Worked great. You might find, that with just a simple stripping, there might be a corner there that would work.

Really, a wooden dowel with sandpaper wrapped on it might give you a sharp enough edge to strike.
 
230grains said:
A 3/8 " carbide end mill will absolutely do the job. INFI isn't that hard, we're not talking about 65RC m50.
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I've never been confident with carbide and HT metal, I'd be inclined to grind it down but either way it's not something I'd feel comfortable doing to one of my own knives.
 
Grimspoon said:
I've never been confident with carbide and HT metal, I'd be inclined to grind it down but either way it's not something I'd feel comfortable doing to one of my own knives.
Click to expand...

Grinding it down would work, i'm just going with what tools he had available.
 
Grimspoon said:
Carbide chips so easily, even on metal that hasn't been heat treated already. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Not a machinist but I do some milling and turning occasionally at work. If the speed and feed is correct you shouldn't have any trouble at all with carbide. In my experience it tends to chip when fed too fast.
 
Well, I have all my Busse knives able to strike a fire steel .... usually this just involves working the spine to either provide a right angle edge to enable sparks to fly .... or do a clip point to enable a better strike ....

Messing with the pommel area I have'nt seen the need to do ....
 
Keeping it on the pommel was mostly a safety initiative, so I can strike a fire without having to have the edge out of the sheath. I can already get weak sparks off of the ASH's pommel, but nothing like what i can get off of a striker or the blade.

Can't get anything off of the street, its all roundy.
 
Beside the answers here, try sending a PM to randucci or Jeremy Horton, both have mills.
 
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