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Showerthought: I thought hogging out a 4140 blank with a roughing end mill was faster, then I timed both on a 4 inch pocket
I always figured the roughing end mill was the obvious pick for hogging out steel, but last week I actually ran both on the same 4 inch pocket in a 4140 block at the shop in Spokane and the regular 4 flute with a lighter stepdown finished about 90 seconds faster. The chip thinning math on the rougher never paid off at the depth I was running it. Maybe I had the feed off, but has anyone else run into that where the fancy tool just didn't beat the plain one?
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the_evan18h ago
Did you happen to catch that Haas video where they tested a rougher against a standard end mill on the same part? The guy kept saying the rougher only wins when you can really lean on the depth of cut, like 1.5x diameter or more. At your stepdown the chip thinning never kicks in so you're just paying for the extra flutes and the notchy edge. A buddy of mine runs a job shop and he said the same thing, the rougher sits in the drawer unless he's taking heavy passes. At 4 inches and a lighter cut I'd bet the 4 flute was just clearing chips better too.
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