Ball End Mill?

[Marauder 1]

I have a question for you machinist guys, I have a small area I need to radius on a aluminum scope mount. It needs a 1 1/4 diameter radius cut into the mount in order for the mount to sit properly on the barrel. I don't own a mill but could this be done using a a drill press and a ball end mill? The length of the cut would only be about 3/4 of an inch long.

Thanks
Mark

[jaysny87]

Drill chucks and press spindles don't typically like holding end mills when Making cuts from side to side. Using an endmill like you would use a drill is usually fine though in a drill chuck. A boring head that is indexable would be fine to use in a drill press but they cost more than a ball nose end mill. In the end if your vise allows travel in the x and y axis it's possible but it's alot of ware and tare on your equipment. If you do do it and your equipment allows take very light cuts and several passes. Not hogging the material out in one pass of the cutter.

[jaysny87]

Another option if possible would be to hang the portion of the part you need the radius on off the side of the vise vertically and use a standard end mill of the appropriate size to drill down using only half of the cutters diameter to achieve the desired radius. I don't know if that makes sense... that way you wouldn't need to use a ball nose and would have to cut from side to side.

[Marauder 1]

That makes total sense, but I have to see if I have enough room to hang the rail off the table and allow the mill to cut the part correctly. the only thing I could see that might also be an issue id to make sure the part is at a true 90 degrees to the cutter so that it won't be an angled cut.

Thanks for the idea, I've been waiting to get a lathe but that has not become available yet from the seller. If I had that I could easily adapt the lathe to cut it.

The other option is to see what a machine shop will charge me. The time to cut would be nothing, it's the setup charge that's probably going to be a lot.

Thanks for the ideas
Mark

[jaysny87]

I don't know how fast you need it but I run a machine shop here in Houston. It's a smallish company 4 cnc mills 2 cnc lathes and several manual machines. I'd be happy to do it for you for no charge. If you covered shipping cost. Just putting that out there it won't hurt my feelings if you go another route. If your interested pm me.

[Marauder 1]

Let me get final measurements and then get back to you. It would be awesome and I don't mind paying the shipping. I need to make sure I have everything measured out correctly. Thanks for the offer.

Mark