End mill question for Brady

[phil_o]

Hi Brady,
on a few posts you've recommended buying end mills rather than spiral router bits. Are there any particular suppliers that you could mention?

[Brady Watson]

Phil,
I get all of my end mills from Oberg Brothers: http://www.obergbrothers.net/ They have incredible buying power & as such, sell to MSC (MSC sells @ list + 10% I believe) Give them a call rather than e-mail. You'll get a good discount when buying 5 or 10 at a time. You can tell him I sent you.

You can get some pretty good deals on Ebay too if you look around. End mills come in Carbide & High Speed Steel (HSS), so unless you are cutting aluminum, you' want to use the carbide ones. Also, try to avoid using the 4-flute ones, since they are really suited for lower RPM milling machines & not routers. You'll want to look for 2-flute ones. End mills are ALWAYS exactly the size they say they are, unless you buy resharpened ones, which I never recommend that you do unless you are cutting thousands of parts & can disipline yourself to keep track of what is sharpened and what isn't.

-B

[phil_o]

Thanks, Brady