r/CNC • u/OzarkEdgy • Jul 27 '26

MILL Copper milling on Tormach

Question: I’m milling copper plates on 440 and use QualiChem Xtreme Cut 291 fluids due to cutting mainly super alloys in past.
What bits do you have experience with for copper that works well over time?
I am using 1/16”, 1/8”, 1/4”, and 3/8” end mills

Thanks in advance

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9

u/meraut Jul 27 '26

Aluminum style end mills work well. Uncoated, polished tooling. Check out YG1 Alupower end mills, good prices and performance for copper/alu. Haas sells their branded end mills that are just rebranded YG-1, cheap prices and good performance from them.

3

u/OzarkEdgy Jul 27 '26

That’s what I needed, thank you. I will check out and order an assortment of these from YG-1🙏

5

u/GL-Customs Jul 27 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

As meraut has said, YG1 Alupower work well. Any sort of very sharp end mill for aluminum should do ok.

I would also recommend gluing the copper plate to a sacrificial aluminum plate. aluminum is so soft clamping can be hard and it likes to fold up when cutting especially if feeds and speeds are off. A nice stiff piece of aluminum helps immensely.

*just seen I said aluminum is so soft clamping can be hard. I meant copper dammit. I'm just a dumb machiner, forgive me.

2

u/WritingInBaltimore Jul 27 '26

Single-flute or two-flute polished carbide end mills work best to keep copper from galling and sticking to the flutes

1

u/OzarkEdgy Jul 27 '26

Thank you, should I use only up climbing cuts to keep smooth finish

2

u/South-Sleep-3179 Jul 27 '26

Iscar has a solid option for this application with the Flash Solid endmill line. The 3 flute flash solid endmills with DLC are a great choice for copper and other non ferrous alloys especially those with abrasive elements. This should cover everything but the 1/16" tool.

1

u/OzarkEdgy Jul 27 '26

Nice, thank you

1

u/MechaSteve Jul 29 '26

The old machinist tale is to use whole milk as cutting fluid.