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Where to buy end mills?

YYCHM

YYCHM

(Craig)
Premium Member
I need to replace my HSS end mills, they are all on their second sharpening and won't tolerate another sharpening attempt. I'm looking for 2 flute HSS nominal sizes 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 3/4.

KBC branded end mills are more expensive than BB offerings and I really can't imagine they are any better in some way. I'm not seeing any smoking hot deals on AliExpress and everything there appears to be metric. Nothing much on Amazon for deals that I can see.

Where are you guys getting your end mills from?

Craig
 
I have bought from KBC and found the quality is excellent.
Mind you, I've never bought end mills from AliExpress though I know @Tom Kitta has and recommends them.
 
David_R8 said:
I have bought from KBC and found the quality is excellent.
Mind you, I've never bought end mills from AliExpress though I know @Tom Kitta has and recommends them.
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The KBC branded ones?

Ya, I know @Tom Kitta swears by AliExpress but I'm not finding anything interesting there. I'm also afraid some of the stuff offered there are actually router bits.
 
I've used BB , KBC, Aliexpress, Banggood and Amazon. I pretty much just keep a rolling order on Aliexpress now and use KBC/BB if time is an issue.

For what I'm paying, if I snap one or dull it, no biggy, pop in another one. Can't say that for the $50 Niagra Cutter carbide I shattered last year..... that money hurt the pocket book. I bought the Niagra end-mill to see what the hype was for USA made stuff..... damn that bit was sharp, and heavy, and cut like butter........... then I destroyed it (user-error)

I order 15-20 bucks work every 3 or 4 weeks and mix up the orders, ordering good 'ol standby bits and trying some different stuff. When I find something I like, I add it to my list of "I should have 3 or 4 of these at all times".

I've been saving my end-mills and will look to put the cutter/grinder I got to use this year to sharpen them.
 
I've bought from Aliexpress, Amazon, KBC, Accusize, and Banggood. Mostly all metric sizes as they are plentiful and cheap. Of course you have to have metric collets to use them but they too are cheap and plentiful. If you don't have them already you might look into them also.
The carbide end mills I got from Aliexpress are particularly nice.
 
Janger said:
MZG store on AliExpress. They’re metric so buy some R8 metric collets.
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I'm just not seeing any smoking good deals there???? By the time I get the sizes I want it's more than BB. Not seeing any HSS stuff either, it's all Alloy Carbide Milling Tungsten Steel what ever that is.
 
Good thread Craig at least one has a better picture of where and who to buy from. What about the Accusize store direct not meaning what's available on Amazon. Unsure that I like the idea of having to swing about and turn to metric end mills for my particular usage.

https://accusizetools.com/

I've bought stuff from the Accusize distributor at Medicine Hat, AB (Dale's Machine Tools) although not end mills, more specifically standard or fine roughing end mills.

Can anyone speak to the Accusize end mill quality???
 
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DPittman said:
Well I guess everyone has a different idea of what cheap is. I ordered a 12mm carbide end mill awhile back for Aliexpress and I thought $16 was cheap for an excellent quality end mill.
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Certainly appears to be the place to shop for carbide alright. Not sure I want to step up to carbide or metric? I have a metric ER20 collet set and R8 collet chuck so going metric up to 13mm isn't a problem.
 
Accusize by & large is the same as what you would find on AliExpress (Chinese). They are yet another distributor. Sometimes a bit more selection when it comes to imperial crossover sizes. It can be a bit more convenient as they sell through Amazon & with Prime can be less total cost and/or faster than through them vs waiting through Ali. So price & time might be the difference.

Part of the reason why you don't see as much HSS end mills selection is they generally just aren't as popular anymore, at least for most commercial applications. I'm not saying they are bad but when you can buy an 8mm carbide for 7$ free shipping, what is the attraction to HSS? You wont find much IMP there because, like Europe, its a metric dominated industry. So yes, best to have an ER collet arbor to accommodate metric shanks. But that will pay itself off on the first few EMs & you have a big new world of availability. Generally metric nominal cutter diameter = shank diameter (unlike many IMP sizes). If you are from the camp that says I need 1/4 or 3/8 then I have to ask why? All EMs have tolerance so its not going to be exactly 0.250 or 0.375" anyways. And there is nothing magical about those dimensions because you are generally milling to some target dimension. You cant run them as a slot & expect that size either due to how EMs cut. Its not that difficult to convert mm/25.4 and there you have inches. Most times you are measuring & compensating anyways. Might be more a mental shift than anything else. But hey, its a hobby, do what ever suits you!
 

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You can also get new / used / re-sharpened endmills from US through eBay. I occasionally get imperial sizes as these cannot be had from aliexpress. However, I am using the aliexpress 12mm carbide as the workhorse mill - uber cheap for what you get - I got them for like 12 CAD. Excellent quality, like 10x cheaper then accusize / KMS/ BB etc.

Carbide may cost 3x as much as HSS (as per above notes) but it certainly imho lasts far more then 3x.

Besides with carbide so cheap why go HSS? Niche applications only. For 90% of what I do its carbide for everything. HSS in steel is usually for specialty cutter or very small endmill or similar. Same thing for lathe work. Heck, shaper is the only tool in the workshop that still operates on HSS - even horizontal mill has carbide tipped as well as indexable cutters (!). Drilling is mostly HSS but carbide also made inroads with indexable drills as well as carbide.
 
@Tom Kitta I agree carbide is far better in most ciircumstances - and I advised him to try it to see if he gets an improvement.

However, I get 2 -3 years on even the cheapest HSS. It seems that there are more pressing problems to fix first. In a smaller machine, it can be easier to chip/break carbide due to lack of rigidity. Not everyone has the rigidity and extra HP for carbide. Carbide is not always better.
 
I think it should now be mentioned that coating of a tool makes a huge difference in steel - even cheap coating (but real one not some paint) on carbide will make it last few times more then uncoated version. This is also based on personal experience. A coated HSS (with real stuff) can outlast uncoated carbide meant for AL in steel.

Also with carbide it is best to either flood cool or not cool at all - or so I heard.

Tool life is very hard to measure - and can vary a LOT. You can run some carbide EM a long time if you are OK with finish getting to the "crap" point.
 
+1 on all those points.

When using carbide and aluminum I always use WD40 or low odour spirits to help avoid chip weld.

Using coolant on HSS is a necessity. My best luck is heavy sulfated oil cut 50% with Varsol. Solulable oil works a treat too, and @RobinHood uses solulable oil without diluting it at all.
 
Craig, refer to my post #12. This afternoon I bit the bullet ordering six end mils from Accusize, three TitAIN coated for roughing and three regular uncoated end mills all 4 flute. We shall see how they work out which I shall share at a much later date. They added a $10 coupon because it was my first order, every little bit helps.
 
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