Mill 4™-12KT Indexable Mill | Cutting "Swiss Cheese"

All right, we're cutting Swiss cheese here today. The question is, will the cutting edges withstand the severe interruptions? We'll see. We're going to try this with the Mill 4-12KT, the tangential shoulder milling cutter.

Learn More About Mill 4-12KT

Why Consider Tangentially Mounted Inserts?

Why should you consider a tangentially mounted insert for such an application? Simply because of this... see the amount of carbide that supports the cutting edge when pushing against the material and creating the chip? That's important when you're facing tougher applications like heavy interrupted cuts, but let's start easy first.

Pushing the Limits with Light Cuts & Interrupted Cuts

We're taking a classic shoulder milling cut with a three-millimeter depth of cut for each pass and about 55% engagement of the cutter. We're running this at 240 meters per minute and a 0.35-millimeter feed rate per tooth.

Next, we're taking a cut through these interruptions here. Cutting speed remains the same but we're lowering the feed rate to 0.3 millimeters per tooth.

Now we're cutting the Swiss cheese. Cutting speed remains unchanged, but for this type of application the feed rate needs to be lowered further, and we're decreasing it to a 0.25-millimeter feed rate per tooth.

Holy smokes! Let's take a look at the inserts. Well, well, well... we got some of the inserts chipped with this cut. No surprise. Think about that. We started with a light cut, then we have taken them to the test with the interrupted cuts. So, the inserts took a little bit of a beating already, then the real heavy cut – not something you would typically do on your shop floor.

Cutting "Swiss Cheese" with No Visible Wear

Let's try this again, this time with the brand-new inserts. Speed and feed rates stay the same at 240 meters per minute and 0.25-millimeter feed rate per tooth.

Quick check. The inserts look good. Let's run it again and see how the Mill 4-12KT will do with a 0.3-millimeter feed rate per tooth.

Quick check. The inserts still look good. Okay, let's see if we can get back to where we started which was 0.35-millimeter feed rate per tooth.

Last check on the inserts. We can clearly see the benefits of the strong cutting edge that features the Mill 4-12KT inserts. No visible wear. No chipping. If you have challenging applications to overcome, then the tangential milling cutter Mill 4-12KT is the way to go. The Mill 4-12KT cutting edges withstand even these severe interruptions.