Carbide drill bits are resistant to abrasion, making them better used for drilling into hard metals. They also stay sharp for longer then steel, HSS, or titanium bits and are effective for drilling tile and masonry.

Drill Bits are sometimes confused with End Mills, But they possess key differences. Drill bits are designed to plunge directly into the material, cutting axially and creating cylindrical holes. End mills are typically used for horizontal carving and cut laterally.

What is a carbide burr

Carbide burrs are tools used for deburring, cutting, shaping, grinding, and chamfering hard materials. Different cuts of carbide burrs will be best suited for certain materials.

Carbide burrs are used in air tools such as die grinders, pneumatic rotary tools and high-speed engravers, Micro Motors, Pendant Drills, Flexible Shafts, and hobby rotary tools such as a Dremel.

The speed at which we move a cutter across the material is called the “feed rate”. The most important aspect of milling with carbide end mills is to run the tool at the proper rpm and feed rate. The rate of rotation is called the “speed” and is controlled by how fast the router or spindle turns the cutting tool. Both feed rate and spindle speed will vary based on the material being cut. Certain mills have very specific running parameters relative to their material families. Spindle speed that is too fast paired with a slow feed rate can result in burning or melting.

Spindle speed that is too slow paired with a faster feed rate can result in dulling of the cutting edge, deflection of the end mill, and the possibility of breaking the end mill. A general rule of thumb is that you want to move the tool through the material as fast as possible, without sacrificing surface finish. The longer the tool rotates in any one place, the more heat that builds up. Heat is your enemy and can burn your material or radically decrease the life or your cutting tool.

A good strategy when selecting a cutter is to attempt to balance feed rate and spindle speed by performing two passes on the workpiece. The first pass, called the roughing pass, can be done by using an end mill that will eject a large number of chips at a high feed rate. The second pass, called the finishing pass, they won’t require as aggressive of a cut and can provide a smoother finish at a high speed.

Flute types

Two and three flute end mills have better stock removal than multiple flute end mills but a significantly decreased finish. End mills with five or more flutes are ideal for finishing cuts and cuts in harder materials, but must operate at lower material removal rates due to their poor chip evacuation properties.End mills with less flutes on the cutting edge will provide better chip clearance, while end mills with more flutes will be able to a finer finish and operate with less vibration while being used on harder cutting materials.