Milling with a dremel & carbide cutters

[questionful]

Well I have a dremel, and I want to be able to do some simple milling on aluminum. I was wondering how these "bits" would perform on aluminum, how fast they would wear, and which one would be best.
1/8" flat tip

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=9902

1/8" rounded tip

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=9902

3/32" flat tip

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=9903

3/32" rounded tip

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=9904

Say, for example, I wanted to ULE a rail. Using these things:
dremel router table thing
dremel "drill press" thing
electric drill

Which of the carbide cutters would I use and how? What RPM and stuff?

I know it's kind of pathetic trying to go about stuff with a dremel but it's all I've got. I'm trying to make the most of it.

[ElPanda]

first of all *not trying to be a dick* when you use a dremel, it isnt milling, if you want to call it milling you must use a mill

you call it dremeling

as for the worksmanship, its not going to be great looking, esspecially if this is going to be your first time using a dremel. Those bits wont wear out at all, I still have the original bits from my dremel and I use them quite often, they still work just like new. that is as long as you use them on aluminum

even with those mounts the dremel doesnt have enough mass to compensate for the ammount of chatter it will create during cutting, so your cuts are going to look no where near the same as a mill job.

[questionful]

Okay, thanks for the reply. It's good to know someone's done it before and there isn't something obviously wrong with it. I think I'm just going to go get one tomorrow and hope I don't mess anything up. I called it milling because the way I usually use it is by holding it in my hand (precision to the max! ) and I was planning on using the carbide cutters like end mills, or at least how I think they're used (i'm 16 with no machine experience ).

So do you have any recommendation for which one I should get? Is a larger diameter better? Will the flat-tipped one get damaged if I run it along the bottom of an aluminum well?

[MagModderMatt]

I do almost all my modding with dremmel's

I have been using my Dremmel for what you describe for 10 years. You are not doing anything wrong, the best advice I can give is go slow and carefully, and use a vice or tool bench to hold things as steady as possable. (and you can mill with dremmels) they make drill presses that fit dremmels. check E-bay they are awsome! So it's not called "milling" I am getting a dremmel press like above sated, they work like a mill, and cost $50! that makes for a very steady "milling" dremmel or for the other guy "drill press" seriously, check it out! you can mount the dremmel to the press. (if you have a model that can hold fittings around the tip, like handles, angled cutters, etc.. The model ## that can fit the press will be listed on ebay so you know if your dremmel fits.

If I'm workin on my marker I use a dremmel (because I cant afford a mill) I cut the crap out of aluminum, you will want to protect the parts you can see (outside of gun) I use stuff like electric tape, and other thick protective stuff. It wont look "profesional" but I have never come apon a job were my dremmel couldnt do what I wanted (except driling big holes) as long as you cover parts that you dont want to scratch, a dremmel is a great tool for modding!

If you need percice work done, then send it to a machinist with a mill, tell them what you want, they are usualy pretty reasonable.

Good luck with your dremmel, I would sugjest buying the adjustable chuck, they cost $10 and you can use non dremmel bits, different sizes, its like a tiny drill chuck, no sleves to switch out.

The bigest thing to worry about is scratchin up your gun, just make sure to protect everything but what you are working on, dremmel's tend to jump out of the spot you are workin in at high RPM's.

Hope this was helpfull

[Hilltop Customs]

Well like ElPanda said, using a dremel is nothing like milling now that thats said:

I dont think that dremel router table will help you do much of anything....cant say for sure though, never used one.

The dremel drill press thing can be useful....to hold the dremel steady while moving the part around, but the same can be acomplished by clamping the part in a vice while moving the dremel.....and a vice has a lot more uses than a dremel drill press.

Now on to the bits, ElPanda said, they wear really well when used on softer metals. I wont say they wont wear out, because if you cut too much too fast the metal overheats and basically fills in the cutting surfaces....leaving you with a smooth cylinder instead of a cutter. If that happens they can be cleaned out, but its a PITA. The flat tiped ones that look like endmills will cut just fine along the bottom of a surface...unlike a real mill, its going to be hard for you to keep the dremel perpendicular to the surface your trying to keep level, and also keeping it at the same depth over the entire surface is going to be VERY hard.

To ULE a rail is going to take you FOREVER with a dremel, no matter which bit you get. Now you could possibly use a drill press and drill most of the space out with say a 1/2" bit or bigger, the go in with a dremel to clean out some more metal....that would probably cut your time wearing out your dremel by 2/3 or even more if your creative with the parts you drill(use different size drill bits to make the material you have to dremel through swiss cheese)

Id go with the biggest bit you can get that looks like an endmill, if your dead set on dremeling.

Do you already have a drill press? You could pick up something like this if you have a drill press, and use it to do some ghetto milling....not good milling, but a big step above anything dremel. Drill presses are not meant to have side to side forces applied to the bit, just forces inlinewith the bit, so they will wear out faster, and still wont create precise cuts, but the cuts will be faster, cleaner and straighter than any dremel will accomplish. Not to mention there is no chance of the dremel cataching and scratching the crap out of your gun, or worse you finger.

[questionful]

Thanks for the help guys, I'll be picking one of these up tomorrow.

[Sajjad]

The dremel drill press thing can be useful....to hold the dremel steady while moving the part around, but the same can be acomplished by clamping the part in a vice while moving the dremel.....and a vice has a lot more uses than a dremel drill press.

try these anything with up to 1/8 shank.

[Toll]

Dremels just aren't intended for that kind of use but they are very helpful for polishing, sanding and other freehand sort of things. That being said, attempting to turn one into a "mill" via that stand would be way out of it's league. Personally I love mine for polishing/light de-burring/sanding down things that are just too tiny for conventional stuff to get to. If you have room, the drill press is a much more versitile and useful way of doing it.

If you're like me and you have no/limited access to tools then you can give it a whirl but it will be ugly, it will take a long time and you probably won't feel great about the results to the degree that you end up getting some one to fix it.

[warpedmephisto]

I've used a high speed rotary tool (Dremel) with an 1/8" 4 flue carbide end mill (Atrax brand if you want to get specific) before to take care of removing some lettering milled into a curved surface. I was going to do it on the mill, but didn't feel like trying to gage the surface geometry, so I just free handed it. I wouldn't try to use it for bulk material removal (there's much more useful things like drills to do that) but for light surface work, if you've got a steady hand, go for it! After I took a bunch of light passes with the Dremel I used hand files and sandpaper to smooth out the rest of it. Just go slow and steady. And be forewarned that they do have the possibility to bite, run away and ruin the piece you've just been working on the for the past hour!

But really, there's no substitute for a machine made for milling.