phill

spectacular work! you are defenately a pro!

I'm assuming your talking about an endmill (looks like a short stubby flatbottomed drill bit ?). Might work through mild steel. Keep your speed up and throw something for coolant on there, WD40 would work just fine. If you find that doesn't work a couple other ideas;

Use your lathe as a mill. Throw your endmill in the chuck of the lathe and clamp your work piece to your tool holder, use shims to get it to the right height. Lock or clamp your carriage down and slowly feed with your cross slide, might have to clamp, cut, unclamp, move ahead, clamp a few times, but oughta work, use coolant again.

Do you have a table saw ? If its just mild steel you could try using a carbide tipped saw blade and by taking really light cuts chew out the groove with that, no personal experience with it but I've heard of it working for guys before. If you can change the speed of the saw slow it down as much as possible and for goodness sake be careful...

Yikes ! As BGD said drills and even mill drills are not really meant for any kind of real milling. Solid Carbide is great but even for the smallest endmills you have to have the machine to run them. Without a decently rigid machine and a collet to hold them I would be very worried you will just chip/shatter anything made out of solid carbide, you just can't get away with holding them in a drill chuck. Proper annealing of the work piece, proper speeds and feeds, as much rigidity as you can get, and flood coolant will go a long way to letting you use HSS on previously hardened material. For you this might mean using a smaller endmill than the slot your trying to make and chewing both sides out, locking your machine up as much as possible, even clamping with c-clamps on those smaller machines will help, and having an old windex bottle filled with coolant and spraying coolant by hand, I'm guessing it doesn't have coolant on it, and using a brazing tip on a oxy torch to do a little local annealing on your work piece. All that said just give anything you can a try. If you can find solid carbide endmills that you can afford to break you might just pleasantly prove me wrong.

Drq

I used to play with two that had rather dull blades so I would not hurt myself. I had been playing on and off with the notion of trying my hand at making one, but hesitating because of the pivot points. The various knifes that I have tried had sloppy pivot points and have not figured out how to make the pivot points properly.

Get on MSC's mailing list, as they have monthly discounted items with milling cutters being a common item. Enco, J&L do the same so get on their lists too. When it comes to cutters, I will give the same advice as I do for drills, and taps. Buy the best that you can afford. CHEAP, not inexpensive, but cheap quality cost you in low performance, breakage, and poorer finishes. Get good tooling, and then take care of it. Learn your speeds, and feeds, and know what to look for in chip coloring.

HSS cutters will do a lot of work for you, but if you work with tough, or hard materials you may want to invest in a couple of solid carbide cutters as well. They can be a lifesaver at times. I have gotten spoiled at work because we use carbide tooling exclusively. I have found that cutters made in the USA, Europe, and Japan do well. Pass if it is made in China, Korea, India, Pakistan, as it is hit or miss in regards to quality. I wouldn't get too hung up on coatings like TiN for what you are doing. I used plain HSS cutters in my shop, and they worked fine for what we did.

My main concern is the fact that you want to do milling in a drill press. Adding a good vise does not make it a mill. Drills are designed to drill holes-vertical loading, not milling-side loading. Drill chucks do not grip endmills well, nor do the spindles run true enough most of the time giving poor results. I have seen several bench model mills on Craigslist for decent prices. The right tool will make life easier, and the end product better.

Used with a pulling motion like a drawknife. Commonly discussed on knifemaker forums.

Now, if you had access to a milling machine, a keyway cutter would work.

anybody know a place either online or in WV to get good quality milling bits that won't break the bank? Harbor freight bits are junk and my local Lowe's and Homedepot don't have any at all. I've upgraded my drill press with a pressicion vise and I have a 7"x10" mini lathe and I've had 72 hours worth of machine shop classes and I'm using that to start a small part time knife business for fun, mostly so my hobby can pay for itself. Any suggestions are GREATLY apriciated!

Build a clamping block for the cross slide of the lathe and put a saw in the lathe. Alternately, if you have a quick change tool post, clam the material in the tool holder and chuck up an end mill.

I guess I should have asked what size is the lathe? A lathe is a mill if you look at it sideways.

Phil

wow I never looked at it like that thanx! my lathe is just a little 7"x10" mini lathe from harbor frieght but it does most of what I want. Awesome idea!

ok so I've made 2 balisongs (butterfly knives) so far, which are much better than store bought I've been told, but I never can cut the grove in the handles as even and straight as I like. I only have basic tools like a pessicion mini lathe, pessicion drill press, angle grinder, and a dremel to work with. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get a straight, even, and centered groove in a 1/2" steel bar? thanx

ok so I've made 2 balisongs (butterfly knives) so far, which are much better than store bought I've been told, but I never can cut the grove in the handles as even and straight as I like. I only have basic tools like a pessicion mini lathe, pessicion drill press, angle grinder, and a dremel to work with. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get a straight, even, and centered groove in a 1/2" steel bar? thanx

any body here make,sell, play with butterfly knives out there?