BAHCO
- Swedish company founded by Johan Petter Johansson, inventor of the plumber pipe wrench. Today, the word "Bahco" is also used as a slang term for an adjustable pipe wrench.
Ball mill
– a ball-nose milling cutter. The correct meaning of “ball mill” is a
grinding device for grinding materials into powder.
Barrel
- a barrel-shape milling cutter.
"Black" and "white" cutting ceramics
– a commonly used classification of ceramic cutting materials according to their color. Pure alumina-based cutting ceramics are "white," while mixed ceramics comprising a composition of alumina with titanium carbide are "black".
Bell mouth
- constant-velocity joint (CV joint).
Bull-nose
– a milling cutter, a replaceable milling head or insert of toroidal cutting profile.
Button cutter
– a toroidal milling tool. In most cases, a button cutter is referred to as a mill with indexable round (button) inserts.
Chip mouth, chip throat, chip slot and chip gullet
- these terms relate to the area of a cutting tool designed for chip flow during machining. The chip mouth and chip throat are usually shaped holes, and the chip gullet is a groove. In rotating tools, the terms "chip mouth" and "chip throat" are more common in hole making, while the terms "chip slot" and "chip gullet" are used more in milling.
Crest Cut End Mill
- Slang term derived from "CREST-KUT®" end mills; refers to a specific design featuring a wavy cutting edge, which was initially introduced for high speed steel milling cutters.
Cubic
– metal removal rate (MRR) in cubic mm, cm or inches.
Dogbone
– a narrow double-ended insert, mainly in indexable parting and grooving tools. Typical examples of dogbone inserts are ISCAR's DO-GRIP and HELI-GRIP inserts.
Duplex
– duplex (austenitic-ferritic) stainless steel.
Facing, profiling, shouldering
– In turning, these terms are used for specifying typical turning operations. In milling, they are "shop talk" words used instead of the full terms "face milling", "profile milling" and "shoulder milling".
Feed mill
– a fast feed (high feed) milling cutter.
Grade
– a specific type of cutting tool material. In particular, “carbide grade”
relates to a type of cemented carbide.
Herringbone
– a herringbone-type milling cutter is usually a solid carbide endmill that features flutes combining left and right helix angles. Herringbone-type endmills are commonly used in machining composites, especially carbon fiber materials, where the left and right helix combination reduces delamination and compresses the material edges. Also referred to as a compression router.
High positive
– a feature of cutting geometry that relates mainly to the rake angle of a
tool. For tools with high positive geometry, the rake angle is
significantly greater than common values.
Inconel
– Inconel is the trade name for a group of more than 20
metal alloys made by Special Metals Corporation. When followed by a number
(e.g. Inconel 625), it is a specific material from a
family of nickel-chromium-based high temperature alloys. Without a number
following, Inconel often refers to a whole group of
nickel-based superalloys.
Inox
– Inox steel is a stainless steel. The term "Inox" comes from "inoxydable", the French word for stainless or inoxidizable.
Lollipop
– a spherical milling cutter that features the wrapping angle of a cutting edge more than 180° (usually 220-240°).
Sometimes, the lollipop cutter is also referred to as an undercutting mill or a bulb-type (bulb-shaped) mill.
Moly
– Molybdenum [Mo]. Moly has an exceptionally high melting point and is mainly used as an alloy agent in steel.
Nirosta
– stainless steel, normally austenitic.
Pecking
– drilling or countersinking with peck feed.
Pic rail cutter
– a milling cutter that is intended for machining the standard Picatinny rail profiles (male and female). "Picatinny rail cutter" or "Picatinny rail form cutter" are more common and more of an official description for such a cutter.
Plunger
– a plunge milling cutter.
Porky
(porcupine) – an extended flute (long-edge) indexable
milling cutter
Positive insert
– this may relate to two different features of an indexable insert:
1. Insert where the insert bottom face is smaller than the insert top face.
2. Inclination of the insert cutting edge that generates a positive axial rake of a tool, when the insert is mounted in the tool.
This dual meaning sometimes causes serious misunderstandings.
PH
- precipitation hardening stainless steel.
Rotabroach drill or simply "Rotabroach"
– a trepanning cutting tool (an annular cutter). The origin of "Rotabroach" comes from the company Rotabroach Ltd, who started manufacturing and marketing such tools in the 1980’s.
Ruthenium, ruthenium grade
- a cemented carbide alloyed with ruthenium.
Scalloped edge
– a serrated cutting edge.
Serrated edge
– Tool or insert cutting edge with a serrated or wavy shape to ensure chip splitting action that achieves small short segment chips.
Slocombe (Slocomb) drill
– a center drill.
Slotter
– in milling, this term defines slot milling cutter;
however it normally refers to a type of planing machine tool.
Slotting
– Originally, this term defined a machining process where a single-point
cutting tool moves linearly and piston wise, and a workpiece is fixed or
moves only in linear direction. However, today this term relates more to
slot milling.
Slotting cutter
– Slot milling cutter (see above)
Spanner or wrench
- Both words mean the same: a tool, mainly operated by hand, for tightening/untightening parts like bolts, nuts etc. or for preventing a rotational movement of the parts. "Spanner" is more common in UK English and "wrench" in US English.
Superfinish
- this word is often used for the extremely high surface finish that can be achieved by a cutting tool. The tool may even be referred to as a "superfinisher". Not to be confused with superfinishing, which is a fine abrasive machining process!
TiNite/Tinite
- Titanium Nitride [TiN]. TiNite is a very hard ceramic material that is used in the protective coating of cutting tools.
Titanium beta (β)
– in most cases it is a beta-annealed α-β-titanium alloy, although sometimes it
means a β-titanium alloy.
Waterfall edge, waterfall, trumpet
- an asymmetrically rounded (honed) cutting edge that, when compared with an edge rounded by radius, has an oval-shaped cross-sectional profile. Depending on the profile positioning with reference to the rake and the relief surfaces of a tool, this profile can be "waterfall" and "trumpet" ("reverse waterfall").
Weldon
- the cylindrical shank of a tool (usually a milling cutter) with one or two side flats for clamping and driving. This type of shank was originally introduced by Weldon Tool Co. in the 1920s.
Whiskers
- whisker-reinforced ceramic.
Whistle notch
- the cylindrical shank of a tool with an inclined side flat for clamping and driving.