[Fixittt]

The first one is a roughing endmill, it eats up material like there is no tomarrow, but the finish is crappy, The middle is a regular endmill. Leaves a nice finish.

The tin coating makes them last a little longer under normal use. But I can amagine (No offence intended) that until you get used to the machine and learn what you can and cannot do you will be wearing them out and breaking them on a regular basis. So stay with the cheap high speed steel (HSS) endmills.

Also #3 is a 3 flute endmill. With only 3 cutting surfaces you have les of a chip load per cutting area, so they will not get clogges as easy as the 4 flute endmills. Very good for long cuts.

You will also find that carbide endmills are very strong. And used correctly (see above statment) will last a long time. But the price reflects this.

Also youa re going to need a good fly cutter. For removing large amounts of surface area and for making parts flat. Also a good vise is a MUST. And as a recomendation, I would get a vise that has holes drilled thrue the jaws so Soft jaws (bolt on /throw away aluminum jaws can be bolted to them.) They are good because you can machine steps into them for holding parts that do not sit on the bottom of the vise, such as water blocks. When you bolt the soft jaws to the vise you can machine the step so that the part will sit flat. U can always use parralles but they are expensive and you can loose them.


Also you need to think about some soft of cooling method. Spray mist cooling is good for manual mills. Although if not contained somehow will make a mess on the floor. Also It would be wise to make some sort of wall that will go behind the mill, and bot sides of the mill to help contain chips. They will accumalate (SP) very quickly.