Introduction About Side Milling

DALIAN, China - April 20, 2025 - PRLog -- What is Side Milling?

It is commonly performed on CNC milling machines, where the cutting tool moves along multiple axes to create complex geometries, the rotation cutting direction of the milling cutter is perpendicular to the feed direction of the workpiece, and material is removed through the rotation of the tool and the movement of the workpiece. Side milling is commonly used for machining shapes such as flat surfaces, grooves, and curved surfaces.

Types of side milling cutters

Staggered tooth milling cutter

These tools have well spaced side cutting teeth on the tool. Uneven spacing between teeth helps to minimize cutting forces during operation. Uneven arrangement of teeth helps reduce the load on each tooth. In addition, this helps to achieve effective results when cutting chips.

Ordinary milling cutter

The design of ordinary milling cutters is completely different. They have a uniform tooth arrangement around the tool, which makes them suitable for machining flat or flat surfaces. Due to the uniform spacing between teeth, they can provide smooth and consistent results. You can use regular milling cutters in applications where precision and smooth surface treatment are important.

How to ensure machining accuracy and surface quality?

In side milling, ensuring machining accuracy and surface quality requires comprehensive consideration of multiple factors. The following are some key measures:

1. Tool selection and installation

Tool accuracy: Choosing high-precision tools directly affects machining accuracy in terms of dimensional accuracy, shape accuracy, and cutting edge quality. For example, the diameter tolerance of the milling cutter should be controlled within ± 0.01mm, and the surface roughness Ra value of the cutting edge should not exceed 0.8 μ m.

Tool installation: The tool installation should be firm, avoiding eccentricity or looseness. After installation, it is necessary to check the radial runout and axial displacement of the tool. The radial runout should not exceed 0.01mm, and the axial displacement should not exceed 0.005mm.

2. Workpiece clamping and positioning

Fixture selection: Choose suitable fixtures based on the shape of the workpiece and processing requirements, such as flat pliers, pressure plates, or customized fixtures. The positioning surface accuracy of the fixture should be high to avoid machining errors caused by fixture problems.

3. Optimization of cutting parameters

Cutting speed and feed rate: Reasonably set the cutting speed and feed rate to avoid excessive or insufficient parameters that may cause increased tool wear or poor surface quality during machining. For example, when processing steel parts, the cutting speed can be set to 100-200m/min and the feed rate to 0.1-0.3mm/z.

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