Basic endmill is anything but

Quickly and economically converting powertrains in Jeep vehicles is what Novak Conversions, Logan, Utah, has been all about since 1967. The company makes all its components in-house and always looks for ways to cut the time and costs of creating, designing, building and machining parts.

Novak applies endmills to rough alloy steel and carbon steel splining on transmission input and output shafts. Machinists were accustomed to short tool life and went through a lot of endmills.

Aaron Mikesell, applications engineer at distributor Herrick Industrial Supply Inc., Ogden, Utah, introduced Novak to the Basic Mill from Haimer USA LLC, Villa Park, Illinois.

The solid-carbide Basic Mill from Haimer USA can aggressively rough a range of workpiece materials and is available with (left) or without Safe-Lock shanks. Image courtesy of Haimer USA

“They tested it for about two weeks and a couple of different applications before we got feedback,” Mikesell said. “It ran excellent. They were completely impressed with the speed and the life of the endmill. And on top of all that, they were extremely surprised with the price.”

The test involved two parts. One required a plunge cut into 3⁄4″-thick steel before being finished with the same tool. Another part was made with a 3⁄8″-dia. endmill.

“It was like night and day,” said Matt Olsen, machinist and CNC programmer at Novak. “We were blown away with the time savings and put it in one machine that we cut splines in. I was skeptical about the shafts. They are done in a lathe with a milling bit, but you don’t even hear it. It’s amazing. We’ve actually used them in manual applications, and the performance is insane.”

Olsen has used the Basic Mill for almost two years, and the results continue to delight. When the old endmills were used during the customary busy season of January to July, Novak went through two or three endmills per week.

“Now we’re still using the
ones that I bought three months ago,” Olsen said. “It’s a huge
improvement.”