End mills are the most commonly used milling cutters on CNC machine tools. There are cutting blades on the cylindrical surface and end face of the end mill. They can cut at the same time or separately. They are mainly used for plane milling, groove milling, step face milling and profile milling. They are divided into integral end mills and brazed end mills.

●The cutting edges of brazed end mills are double-edged, triple-edged, and quad-edged, with diameters ranging from 10mm to 100mm. Due to the improvement of brazing technology, milling cutters with large rotation angles (about 35°) have also been introduced.

The most commonly used end mills have a diameter of 15mm to 25mm, which are used for the processing of steps, shapes and grooves with good chip discharge.

●Integral end mills have double-edged and triple-edged edges, with diameters ranging from 2mm to 15mm, and are widely used in plunge grinding, high-precision groove processing, etc., and also include ball-end end mills.

●How to choose an end mill

When selecting an end mill, the workpiece material and the processing part should be considered. When machining materials with long, tough chips, use straight or left-handed end mills. To reduce cutting resistance, the teeth can be cut along the length of the teeth.

When cutting aluminum and castings, choose a milling cutter with a small number of teeth and a large rotation angle to reduce cutting heat. When grooving, choose the appropriate tooth groove according to the chip discharge volume. Because if chip blockage occurs, the tool will often be damaged.

When selecting an end mill, pay attention to the following three aspects: first, select the tool based on the condition that chip blockage does not occur; then hone the cutting edge to prevent chipping; and finally, select the appropriate tooth groove.

When cutting high-speed steel, a relatively fast cutting speed is required, and it must be used within the range of a feed rate not exceeding 0.3mm/tooth. If oil lubrication is used when cutting steel, the speed should be controlled below 30m/min.