Milling cutters mainly function to scrape a certain material off the workpiece. Various milling cutters are available for different materials, including stainless steel. Because of stainless steel’s high strength and versatility, traditional milling cutters have to adapt and be more innovative, ensuring a high-quality stainless steel cutting process. 

Today, technologies have advanced to create premium milling cutters to scrape stainless steel without compromising quality. Tianzhao is a leading milling cutting factory based in China, offering top-notch milling operations and services for all your needs. It has been a trusted company by several large-scale businesses, including some of the most famous brands worldwide. 

In this blog, you’ll learn about stainless steel milling cutters, their advantages, essential factors, and the innovative steps in the milling operations of stainless steel today. 

Stainless Steel Milling Cutters Defined

Milling cutters for stainless steel are uniquely designed, providing enough force and strength to cut and scrape stainless steel and overcome its heavy-duty and durable characteristics. These cutters are generally hard, wear-resistant, tough, and possess good thermal conductivity. 

During the cutting process of stainless steel, the milling cutters are end mills made of cemented carbide and high-speed steel, including high-vanadium and tungsten-molybdenum. These materials ensure that the quality of stainless steel remains premium with high-class physical characteristics. 

Generally, stainless steel can pose challenges in the milling process because of its strong fusion and adhesion, causing the chips to easily stick to the milling cutter’s cutting edge. 

To overcome these challenges and enable an efficient and smooth cutting process, the milling cutters are designed with good hardening work, cutting force, and high cutting temperature. 

Advantages of Milling Cutters for Stainless Steel

As mentioned, milling cutters for stainless steel are uniquely fabricated to withstand the superior physical characteristics of stainless steel. 

The following are the advantages of these milling cutters:

1. Low Maintenance and Durable

Stainless steel milling cutters are low maintenance, requiring easy cleaning and regular inspection to have longer life cycles. Additionally, these special cutting tools are hygienic and suitable for other materials besides stainless steel, especially in industrial machining. 

Because these milling cutters were specially created for stainless steel, they can withstand extreme and harsh temperatures and various environments. Their low maintenance and long-lasting durability make these cutting tools cost-efficient, with improved productivity during the milling process of stainless steel. 

2. Corrosion-Resistant

Milling cutters for stainless steel also exhibit high corrosion resistance because you can use them in multiple environments. These tools can resist atmospheric conditions and withstand alkaline solutions, acids, and chloride exposure.

Because of the corrosion resistance property of stainless steel milling cutters do not rust easily, even after using them multiple times. With this, you can expect to use them for a longer time without the need to replace the cutting edges after utilizing them frequently.

3. Flexible and Versatile 

Another advantage of stainless steel milling cutters are their flexibility and versatility. You can utilize these cutting tools not only exclusively for stainless steel but also for other materials. The productivity of milling machines is also improved because of the flexibility of these milling cutters, ideal for most milling operations. 

The combined versatility and flexibility of stainless steel milling cutters allow the fabrication of more complex milling designs, specifications, and geometries. 

4. High Strength

The tensile strength and other physical characteristics of stainless steel milling cutters are superior to traditional ones. This advantage improves a milling machine’s efficiency and productivity in cutting. Milling cutters for stainless steel are designed with highly durable material that can withstand and overcome stress without breaking, deforming, or getting damaged. 

The improved strength of stainless steel milling cutters makes them more resistant to wear and tear. This is a significant advantage of stainless steel because its chips can easily adhere to the cutting tools. 

Improved Manufacturing Process for Milling Cutters

As technology evolves and becomes more advanced, several modifications and improvements are also done to the manufacturing process of milling cutters, especially in aerospace and automotive applications. Because stainless steel is tough, these innovations are only essential to creating a smooth and efficient cutting experience for this highly durable material. 

With the evolution and changes done to the milling operations and the tools, milling cutters are starting to feature more complex parts to create better and optimized outputs. 

The Features Needed for Improved Manufacturing

Aside from the proper tooling with the right feeds and appropriate speed, milling machines should be well-built with solid casting foundations and high-quality components. A solid foundation will help guarantee rigidity during the cutting process of stainless steel. This includes roller ways and durable ball screws that can help stabilize the table used during the milling process. 

Additionally, powerful spindles are also important. The milling machines used should have sufficient torque and horsepower to power stainless steel milling cutters, yielding better results and helping the entire machine last longer. If you use lighter-duty machines, they can still cut well and efficiently but won’t last as long with frequent use. 

Moreover, improving the cutting efficiency of the milling cutters also involves using motion control systems. These are critical when you want to produce a good surface finish of the product or material you are cutting. Motion control systems help allow variations in motion, making it faster during roughing and semi-finishing and slower during the finishing process. 

These variations help produce the type of finish you desire for stainless steel. Rigid machine designs with vertical mill constructions can also help provide tight tolerances for tougher and more heavy-duty stainless grades. The design helps to absorb and isolate cutting forces, accelerating and maintaining the required speed for the smooth cutting of stainless steel. 

Steps in Manufacturing Stainless Steel Milling Cutters

The manufacturing of stainless steel milling cutters involves five modified steps to improve the cutting efficiency of these advanced tools. 

These steps are enumerated below:

1. Designing Parts using CAD

Today, using CAD in various industries has also reached the milling sector. This first step involves creating virtual representations or models of the desired outcome using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software. With various available CAD-CAM programs, it’s now easier to adopt this software and use it in having a design goal for your stainless steel. 

These CAD-CAM programs also allow users to create the needed G code for the machining operations. The codes are also essential for checking, amending, and creating the necessary changes to suit the capabilities of your milling machine. CAD software also allows your entire team to simulate the entire cutting process.

One of the best advantages of utilizing CAD software is the ability to check for possible errors in the design, ensuring that the models produced are accurate and carefully created.

2. Transferring CAD Codes for Machining

Once you have created the prototype of your desired cutting design of stainless steel, codes are generated from the CAD software and are now ready for transfer. These codes must be checked as they are transferred to ensure consistency, accuracy, and precision in the design prior to machining. 

3. Machining

The machining processes involve threading, turning, drilling, and milling. As mentioned earlier, stainless steel is challenging to machine compared to carbon steel, with lower alloying content. During the machining process of this material, the tools and inserts used are crucial. You must make sure that they are all designed exclusively for stainless steel, following the tool supplier’s recommendations. 

4. Cutting

The cutting process of stainless steel involves shearing, sawing, punching, and thermal cutting techniques, such as laser or plasma cutting. You will need a higher cutting force for your milling cutters, but you can use the same methods to cut carbon steel.

Because there are various kinds of stainless steel, cutting each kind also entails different methods. For instance, because ferritic stainless steel resembles carbon steel, these two materials have the same strength level. On the other hand, austenitic stainless steel should have a clearance of below 10% between the die and the punch to maintain low burr height during shearing and punching. 

The main concern during cutting is chipping and tool wear, which can affect the overall quality of the cutting edge finish. It’s important to keep the burr amount at a minimum by adjusting the clearance, cutting force, and cutting speed. 

Milling Cutter for Stainless Steel Buying Guide

With various milling cutter options available, you need to be wise in choosing the best one for the stainless steel you are working on. The factors listed are crucial to ensure optimal cutting efficiency and increased productivity for stainless steel milling cutters. 

1. Check the Materials Used

In searching for the best cutting tools, the best qualities should involve high toughness, hardness, and heat resistance while having low chemical affinity. A low chemical affinity prevents overheating when working with stainless steel, thereby preventing degradation and deformity of the cutter. 

The best options for the material used in fabricating milling cutters are gold materials and tungsten-cobalt alloys. 

2. Choose Your Preferred Tool Geometry

The tool geometry of your cutting tool is also essential to produce the type of finish you desire for stainless steel. You must choose milling cutters with large rake angles to help reduce friction and cutting deformation that can influence the smoothness of the stainless steel’s edges.

Additionally, the negative chamfer should only be enough to create your desired cutting design. A chip breaker with a full arc-shaped is preferred, helping increase the rake angle to generate better chip-breaking effects. Additionally, the chip holding tool should increase the space for chip holding. 

3. Establish Appropriate Heat Treatment

The appropriate heat treatment varies depending on the type of stainless steel. For instance, austenitic stainless steel is treated with solution treatments. On the other hand, martensitic stainless steel is quenched and tempered to achieve the desired heat treatment for a more effective milling process. 

4. Select The Right Cutting Dosage

The right cutting dosage involves proper cutting speed and temperature. Milling cutters should not have too high cutting speeds to avoid generating high temperatures that can lead to overheating the machine. Subsequently, the feed rate should be maintained at the right level, avoiding excessive cutting loads. 

5. Ensure Proper Cutting Fluid 

Even milling cutters require cutting fluid for lubrication and optimum cooling for cutting efficiency. When choosing a good cutting fluid, it should have good cooling performance and anti-adhesion. An example can be emulsified fluid containing sulfur and chlorine, which are extreme pressure additives. 

There should also be a sufficient liquid supply. Air cooling with high pressure and spray cooling are more suitable for the cooling method. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

What is the difference between finishing and roughing tools? 

Roughing cutting tools generally consist of cutting grooves or wavy cutting edges with big amounts of contact surfaces. The cutting speed is commonly small, with low dimensional accuracy and surface quality. On the other hand, finishing tools have sharper and stronger cutting edges and greater strength. 

What are the possible drawbacks of milling Stainless Steel?

Milling cutters with coolants can cause the stainless steel chips to cool faster, fusing with the blade and reducing the tool’s life cycle. Stainless steel also poses concerns with the cutter’s feed rate. A high feed rate can cause material accumulation, while a low feed rate can generate friction between the material and the milling cutter, leading to overheating.

Another challenge in milling stainless steel is maintaining the optimum cutting speed to ensure that the chips are consistently light brown, preventing possible overheating of the cutter. Note that once the chips become dark brown, the cutting speed is already at its maximum. 

What is the milling speed for Stainless Steel?

An SFM of 100 to 350 is recommended when cutting stainless steel. This involves a chip load from 0.0005” for an end mill of ⅛” and 0.006” for one inch of an end mill. 

The Future of Stainless Steel Milling Cutters

Stainless steel milling cutters are created with meticulous processing and manufacturing to ensure optimum cutting efficiency to overcome tough stainless steel grades. When looking for the best milling cutter company, it’s important to remember the factors mentioned and trust only reputable businesses like Tianzhao. 

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