I bought 1 from Banggood and one of the 4 flutes was shorter by 0.15mm (~0.005”) low than the rest causing an uneven cut and terrible surface finish. The bolt sent with it isn’t long enough and only engaged the first thread. It’s about .375” short. Buy from Ebay or Amazon so you can easily return it
this is all good news for the home hoobyist/machinist.....good review John, straight forward and honest as we have come to expect from you. All the best.
Hi John, looks nice, good you tried more than just aluminium, many reviews are done on alu with inserts for steel, many people dont know you can get inserts for alu it seems, All the best. A good old milled thumbs up.
Honest review John. As far as feeds and speeds, thats down to individual mills and their stability and performance. As you said yours is a light duty machine and practice will bring the best results. Thanks for sharing. Kindest regards. Joe.
I have the same cutter,also the shell mill with the round inserts,which I think is even better.i was told you can run these inserts really high speed.i usually run both inserts at the max speed of machine,which is 1600 rpm.i also only cut material so the chips are projected towards the mill post. like you say,these are great value.
John, In my mind as you were saying about spare mounting bolts I could see one of them making a bid for freedom down that hole on your bench! I have the same cutter and with Al inserts I regularly do 2-3mm of aluminium with excellent surface finish. What I find more useful is the smaller 3 insert 1" diameter milling tools primarily designed for cnc but can remove 5mm al easily at ridiculous speeds similar to the 'superfly' cutters used by NYCNC. Keep up the good work. Mike
Bought exactly the same face mill via AliExpress. With the inserts that come with the mill I was ony able to cut aluminium. Ordered some more expensive ones which were delivered this week. Type: APMT1604 PDER M2 VP15TF I am yet to test them but after watching your review I'm confident that they will do the job.
Watching you handle those tiny screws over a hole in your workbench, had me on the edge of my seat. I was waiting for one to drop through and hear your reaction. : ))
Very interesting as usual. It seems like very good value. Budget tooling is getting better all the time. Difficult to see how they make money. As an aside it was great to see the rpm indicator in use and to see one of your camera mounts!
dont forget that you can use shell mills as a fly cutter concept simply by putting in only one insert--also on those inserts be sure to take off the wiper flat they have with a diamond lap.
I would go for both, would be relatively easy to match all 4 for cut depth as there likely is some tolerance, and a bit of measurement with the 10 inserts would give you at least one position all 4 are equal in cut. But for the price just use as is seems to work well enough, or use only one insert and make it a fly cutter.
I have one with 6 cutters and that's the same just 1 is cutting it takes ages to get all cutting, I just made a simple 2 cutting and that's better than the 6 cutter
Hello John. I enjoyed your video review. The tool performed well. I guess most Toolmakers and Hobbyists will stick with Fly Cutting. It just depends on the quantity of parts to machine.
My only complaint with Banggood is the length of time it takes to get the stuff I ordered from them, (6 weeks). The time itself isn't really the problem. Since I live in the hinterlands it isn't unusual but they said it would take a week to 10 days.
Nice review John. I have the same face mill and it does just what I need it too. If I was building the space shuttle, I would probably get something better quality. For the garage hacker, It's worth every penny and then some. Cheers !!
John based on your review I purchased this face mill and the carbide inserts APMT1604 so if I may ask what is the number for the universal inserts . Bob the winner of the Christmas eve draw the best gift I've received this last Christmas,thank you again John for what you do for the home machinist
Hi John, it looks like the last link only points to a general home page instead of possibly the page for the hard material cutters. Thanks for posting this review.
also you would be astonished how fast you can run that cutter across there--at least four times faster to rough and much deeper--unless the machine dosent have the power
I use the same type type of carbide cutters, the gold ones, in my homemade face mill but they are made made SECO and they perform as good as you can espect.
Hi I think it would be great to get one spare screw with new tips You end up with plenty of spare screws aventually, but then you can use them somewhere else or toss bad ones
Hya John i see you have given up on the crappy hinges on the belt cover lid. I have a Warco with horrible hinges just waiting to drop off. Thanks for the video i have been looking at Banggood tooling and about to order a boring bar head , two or three people on this site have done reports on there tools and i,m sure they will be good enough for me to destroy !! Regrds Maurice
Thank you. I was thinking of trying some of their tooling. I think I might order some tommorow to try . PS thank you for the videos and the training tips
I forgot--those inserts be aware you can use all 4 edges but to use the other 2 edges takes a different cutter body to hold them--nobody knows those other 2 edges are actually cutting edges.
i got one of them of ebay nearly a year ago now and it does the job it has to do. and as you you say if it is good people will see from the video. if it is shite then i am sure you would say so
From your close-ups of the tool tips after the first cuts, it looks like only one of the four inserts was doing the work, but I suppose you get what you pay for.
Or you could be wrong in your observation as your are only viewing a video and making an assumption. If you are wrong as I believe you are, then its excellent value for money. I should add I have one of these and it cuts on all four.
If I had been putting the tips in, one of those little screws would have fallen in that hole in the bench, bounce off of something under it, and disappeared forever.
I don't see why there is such scepticism and so much effort put into trying to find any little thing that can be used in discrediting the chinesium kit. They work in pricebands - and within any priceband their aim is to undercut the competition while outdoing them for quality. Like the SAS with files. When the industrial revolution was rolling no one had much competition - now the rules are different - and the stakes are high. They're not daft either - you're not going to get it for free... but it will come with a %30 or better discount on comparable quality. Once the competition starts struggling - the knee jerk is then they start with redundancies - then the shutdowns - and once they're gone - it's for good - tunbleweed city doesn't take long. This kit is usually made in cutting edge machineshops built to the same standard we used to have in sheffield and all the other high quality engineering areas. They build to price by design not due to incompetence - underestimate them at your peril - which means the cheap stuff will maybe be a bit raggy round the edges - but not as raggy as the competition - their good stuff will either be the same and cheaper or better ... and cheaper - not tattier. Most of the "homebrew" kit these days is made in the same shops and then shipped over here for assembly and boxing.
I have observed this as well. There can be several price points for the same type of tool, but the higher price point tools have tighter tolerances and better finish while the lower price points are not as nice. I've done some research on other (non tool) items, and often times there are factories across the street from each other that make "same" products, but at different tolerances and price points. The difficulty is that once they are exported to a reseller, the consumer no longer knows the quality of the tool by it's price point because the reseller can set the markup to any level they want.
Markup is a fair point but even buying online from UK sellers is like that too. Photos are wonderful but if you look round, they all use one or other of the same two! You cant beat being able to touch and try. I try to set myself a limit of £5 for buying unseen online cr@p. However good the returns policy is, once its through the door - getting it to you was might have been "free" but you just know it's going to cost you £40 to get it back to them for your £1.99 refund.
You can not do that at all with a Mini Mill :( a half a HP milling machine can not do that. I have tried it and then put this tool a side and since never used it....:(
I beg to differ, see my revies of the same tool here:- czcams.com/video/kqj0aJhiyZ8/video.html This is the mill that John kindly fitted the DRO to when I was too ill to do the job myself, series here: czcams.com/video/FFoohulfvD8/video.html The small Chinese mills are capable of good work if you take heed of their limitations, I only have space for a small mill but wouldn't be without it! Good review, John. Keep up the good work - I positively look forward to my SNNC's
I think you have a point. I've got a face mill not much bigger than that (it's a high shear spi 4 inch), and when it's set right, it will take massive cuts and just sing along like nothing.
Hi Tony, many hobbyist machines, are probably not capable of achieving correct variables for material and inserts, and very rare can deliver flood coolant. The inserts and tool holder featured here have positive rake, meaning tip load, and machine power is a lot lower than for negative rake inserts and holders. Some tips have chip breakers, which help for lower powered machines. Generally, if the fixing is as featured, it has a positive rake, negative rake tips, have other clamping methods. For non hardened ferrous materials, as long as the chips come off no darker than a blue colour, then it's fine, for hardened steels, expect some red/black chips, most inserts are circa 93 hardness Rockwell C. Worst condition for any metal removing tool is too low DOC and Feed. I did serve an apprenticeship, partly in a machine shop circa 1970s, but it has been only the last ten years that I have returned to machining on a hobby basis, across a Bridgeport mill, and Colchester lathe. Best regards John.
I bought 1 from Banggood and one of the 4 flutes was shorter by 0.15mm (~0.005”) low than the rest causing an uneven cut and terrible surface finish. The bolt sent with it isn’t long enough and only engaged the first thread. It’s about .375” short. Buy from Ebay or Amazon so you can easily return it
your reviews are much better than just looking at how shiny it is, good to see it working hard
this is all good news for the home hoobyist/machinist.....good review John, straight forward and honest as we have come to expect from you. All the best.
Hi John. I have the same cutter and tips and i have used them for about 9 months now and they are fine.
Hi John, looks nice, good you tried more than just aluminium, many reviews are done on alu with inserts for steel, many people dont know you can get inserts for alu it seems, All the best. A good old milled thumbs up.
Honest review John. As far as feeds and speeds, thats down to individual mills and their stability and performance. As you said yours is a light duty machine and practice will bring the best results. Thanks for sharing. Kindest regards. Joe.
I have the same cutter,also the shell mill with the round inserts,which I think is even better.i was told you can run these inserts really high speed.i usually run both inserts at the max speed of machine,which is 1600 rpm.i also only cut material so the chips are projected towards the mill post. like you say,these are great value.
John,
In my mind as you were saying about spare mounting bolts I could see one of them making a bid for freedom down that hole on your bench!
I have the same cutter and with Al inserts I regularly do 2-3mm of aluminium with excellent surface finish. What I find more useful is the smaller 3 insert 1" diameter milling tools primarily designed for cnc but can remove 5mm al easily at ridiculous speeds similar to the 'superfly' cutters used by NYCNC.
Keep up the good work.
Mike
thanks that was an honest test. I was not aware of the inserts for hardened stuff. Those tool holders are very hard and tough, I am impressed.
Bought exactly the same face mill via AliExpress. With the inserts that come with the mill I was ony able to cut aluminium.
Ordered some more expensive ones which were delivered this week. Type: APMT1604 PDER M2 VP15TF
I am yet to test them but after watching your review I'm confident that they will do the job.
Watching you handle those tiny screws over a hole in your workbench, had me on the edge of my seat. I was waiting for one to drop through and hear your reaction. : ))
Very interesting as usual. It seems like very good value. Budget tooling is getting better all the time. Difficult to see how they make money. As an aside it was great to see the rpm indicator in use and to see one of your camera mounts!
dont forget that you can use shell mills as a fly cutter concept simply by putting in only one insert--also on those inserts be sure to take off the wiper flat they have with a diamond lap.
For what they cost I think that's a fair review, cheers John.
Alan.
It would be interesting to see the position variants between each tooth to demonstrate the holder quality.
I will have a measure just to see how good or bad they are the "cut pattern" on the tips looked very good
I agree. Sounds like 1 tooth is banging.
might be interesting to first simply swap that tooth for another from the box to see if the variation was with the teeth or holder?
I would go for both, would be relatively easy to match all 4 for cut depth as there likely is some tolerance, and a bit of measurement with the 10 inserts would give you at least one position all 4 are equal in cut. But for the price just use as is seems to work well enough, or use only one insert and make it a fly cutter.
I have one with 6 cutters and that's the same just 1 is cutting it takes ages to get all cutting, I just made a simple 2 cutting and that's better than the 6 cutter
Hello John.
I enjoyed your video review.
The tool performed well.
I guess most Toolmakers and Hobbyists will stick with Fly Cutting.
It just depends on the quantity of parts to machine.
My only complaint with Banggood is the length of time it takes to get the stuff I ordered from them, (6 weeks). The time itself isn't really the problem. Since I live in the hinterlands it isn't unusual but they said it would take a week to 10 days.
Nice review John. I have the same face mill and it does just what I need it too. If I was building the space shuttle, I would probably get something better quality. For the garage hacker, It's worth every penny and then some. Cheers !!
John based on your review I purchased this face mill and the carbide inserts APMT1604 so if I may ask what is the number for the universal inserts . Bob the winner of the Christmas eve draw the best gift I've received this last Christmas,thank you again John for what you do for the home machinist
Thanks for that - very handy as I was looking at buying one of these for an old Elliot and now definitely will.
Hi John, Thanks for the vidoe. Good to see the test on different metals. Mid week aswell.
Hi John, it looks like the last link only points to a general home page instead of possibly the page for the hard material cutters.
Thanks for posting this review.
I will try and sort out the links
I love you guys for doing these Reviews , i got to see what i am getting .. THANKS JOHN !
also you would be astonished how fast you can run that cutter across there--at least four times faster to rough and much deeper--unless the machine dosent have the power
I use the same type type of carbide cutters, the gold ones, in my homemade face mill but they are made made SECO and they perform as good as you can espect.
My bang good stuff has arrived all week haven’t used it yet but suitable happy with the quality and finish
Thanks for the video, I was thinking of ordering some tooling from Bangood and hadn't seen any one use any. Looks good to me.
I had my eye on one of those! Now all I need is a mill . . .
Hi
I think it would be great to get one spare screw with new tips
You end up with plenty of spare screws aventually, but then you can use them somewhere else or toss bad ones
Thanks for the test I just got one yesterday and I'm glad to see I didn't east my money
Hya John i see you have given up on the crappy hinges on the belt cover lid. I have a Warco with horrible hinges just waiting to drop off.
Thanks for the video i have been looking at Banggood tooling and about to order a boring bar head , two or three people on this site have done reports on there tools and i,m sure they will be good enough for me to destroy !! Regrds Maurice
Good review John, you cannot really complain for the money TBH.
Thank you. I was thinking of trying some of their tooling. I think I might order some tommorow to try . PS thank you for the videos and the training tips
Just ordered one. Thanks John.
I forgot--those inserts be aware you can use all 4 edges but to use the other 2 edges takes a different cutter body to hold them--nobody knows those other 2 edges are actually cutting edges.
i got one of them of ebay nearly a year ago now and it does the job it has to do.
and as you you say if it is good people will see from the video.
if it is shite then i am sure you would say so
Great Review John.!!
Would’ve been nice to see if it met the maximum depth of cut specified for this cutter on the different materials.
Think the mill power will be the limiting factor here.
It sounds like only one of the tips is doing the cutting, it also looks like that too by the ware marks on them. What do you think?
Nice video. Looks like it works well.
I'm not sure what has changed, but I'm getting large motion artifacts on your last few videos when played at 720p.
Hi John, good fair review. What was the number of the tips you used when milling the lathe tool holder?
From your close-ups of the tool tips after the first cuts, it looks like only one of the four inserts was doing the work, but I suppose you get what you pay for.
Or you could be wrong in your observation as your are only viewing a video and making an assumption. If you are wrong as I believe you are, then its excellent value for money. I should add I have one of these and it cuts on all four.
If I had been putting the tips in, one of those little screws would have fallen in that hole in the bench, bounce off of something under it, and disappeared forever.
Mine cuts with one insert caz it's lower then other 3.
I don't see why there is such scepticism and so much effort put into trying to find any little thing that can be used in discrediting the chinesium kit. They work in pricebands - and within any priceband their aim is to undercut the competition while outdoing them for quality. Like the SAS with files.
When the industrial revolution was rolling no one had much competition - now the rules are different - and the stakes are high.
They're not daft either - you're not going to get it for free... but it will come with a %30 or better discount on comparable quality.
Once the competition starts struggling - the knee jerk is then they start with redundancies - then the shutdowns - and once they're gone - it's for good - tunbleweed city doesn't take long.
This kit is usually made in cutting edge machineshops built to the same standard we used to have in sheffield and all the other high quality engineering areas. They build to price by design not due to incompetence - underestimate them at your peril - which means the cheap stuff will maybe be a bit raggy round the edges - but not as raggy as the competition - their good stuff will either be the same and cheaper or better ... and cheaper - not tattier. Most of the "homebrew" kit these days is made in the same shops and then shipped over here for assembly and boxing.
I have observed this as well. There can be several price points for the same type of tool, but the higher price point tools have tighter tolerances and better finish while the lower price points are not as nice. I've done some research on other (non tool) items, and often times there are factories across the street from each other that make "same" products, but at different tolerances and price points. The difficulty is that once they are exported to a reseller, the consumer no longer knows the quality of the tool by it's price point because the reseller can set the markup to any level they want.
Markup is a fair point but even buying online from UK sellers is like that too. Photos are wonderful but if you look round, they all use one or other of the same two! You cant beat being able to touch and try.
I try to set myself a limit of £5 for buying unseen online cr@p. However good the returns policy is, once its through the door - getting it to you was might have been "free" but you just know it's going to cost you £40 to get it back to them for your £1.99 refund.
Cheers John
I wish you paid for it, only way to get an honest review.
You can not do that at all with a Mini Mill :( a half a HP milling machine can not do that. I have tried it and then put this tool a side and since never used it....:(
I beg to differ, see my revies of the same tool here:- czcams.com/video/kqj0aJhiyZ8/video.html
This is the mill that John kindly fitted the DRO to when I was too ill to do the job myself, series here: czcams.com/video/FFoohulfvD8/video.html
The small Chinese mills are capable of good work if you take heed of their limitations, I only have space for a small mill but wouldn't be without it!
Good review, John. Keep up the good work - I positively look forward to my SNNC's
Very good
Can it machine a bastard file? :)
sure be nice to have someone speak plain english >>>>>>>> geeeeeeez
I like your channel but come on you must learn about speeds and feeds before you do reviews !
With a lightweight machine,I always go on the low side of possible feeds and speeds Thanks for watching
Okay maybe i'm being unfair carry on the good interesting work
I think you have a point. I've got a face mill not much bigger than that (it's a high shear spi 4 inch), and when it's set right, it will take massive cuts and just sing along like nothing.
Hi Tony, many hobbyist machines, are probably not capable of achieving correct variables for material and inserts, and very rare can deliver flood coolant. The inserts and tool holder featured here have positive rake, meaning tip load, and machine power is a lot lower than for negative rake inserts and holders. Some tips have chip breakers, which help for lower powered machines. Generally, if the fixing is as featured, it has a positive rake, negative rake tips, have other clamping methods.
For non hardened ferrous materials, as long as the chips come off no darker than a blue colour, then it's fine, for hardened steels, expect some red/black chips, most inserts are circa 93 hardness Rockwell C. Worst condition for any metal removing tool is too low DOC and Feed.
I did serve an apprenticeship, partly in a machine shop circa 1970s, but it has been only the last ten years that I have returned to machining on a hobby basis, across a Bridgeport mill, and Colchester lathe.
Best regards John.
unless you are machining plastic you would need at least a 3 ton mill to make a 4 inch face mill sing .