tool construction varies from maker to maker for several reasons and via several directions.
1. the purpose of the tool must be taken into consideration. for any tool to be used for your application (application means how you intend to use the tool like hard fast cuts in soft material, slow speed deep cuts in hard material, etc) you have many factors to consider; chiefest of them is the category of material. every tool manufacturer divides their tools by material. you can make a dozen tools for cutting steel, but separate tools should be made for Stainless, and separate tools for mild steel. specific tools should be made for edge cutting vs depth cutting, specific tools should be made for finishing vs roughing, specific tools should be made for with-coolant vs without....
2. the torque of the machine being used should be part of your consideration when you design an application of the tool; if you are in the business of integrating tools into CAM, you must know your requisite machine torque curve, and relative accuracy/repeatability of your axes. if you try to integrate a large diameter tool into a spindle with a low torque, it will likely stall during cut and could break more than just the tool if your axial engagement is too high.
3. flute geometry for your application; if you are trying to increase the rate at which your mill removes material you can always increase the number of flutes used to cut material, however you may not always have that luxury with tool providers. finding a 4 flute 2mm tool can be rather tricky. instead you can substitute a geometric grind that is more capable of faster material evacuation at high velocity, which means you will need to control engagement for chip and maintain specific feed rates to actually clear the material from the flute fast enough. they don't always make tools with varying geometries though so often you will be stuck with one type. this can limit your feed and engagement, and dictate what you can actually do with the tool in your mill.
4. coatings/hardenings dictating expense of the tool; many makers of end mills apply coatings or perform hardening of the edges of the tool. this increases cost, and can increase tool longevity. it also means they are built again with specific purposes in mind.
these are the kinds of things that affect tool performance, pricing, and if you are not the CAM programmer you might not want to be buying new tools because any change in geometry should be accounted for in the CAM software. simply swapping one brand for another is also dangerous because those brands have again designed their tools for specific application and need to be driven by the CAM instructions with specific intent.
i can believe there are tools out there with fantastic life, but please remember they were optimized for this life and driven to this life by not only the tool engineer but also the CAM engineer.
e by Wakanda Dental Supply.
