Erm I can't reach the waste board!

For a better understanding of the basics of endmills please see:

I’m sure you can find a 1/4" square upcut carbide endmill with 3 flutes — it’s a pretty common geometry.

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Just signs and boxes using timber, at the moment.

I’ve got a variety of 1/8" and 1/16" end mills, but I was thinking of something a bit more robust until I get a bit more confident.

I’ve got this set and this set.

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That sounds like a sensible start, wood is much more forgiving whilst you learn than other things, make some plywood clamps too so that your first workholding crashes are cheap :wink:

The Carbide 201 is a great general purpose cutter, I used the ones I bought with the machine until they were completely blunt. It’s not a cheap cutter but the grade of carbide and dimensional accuracy can vary a lot between cutters so cheaper frequently has some compromises.

If you can’t find the 201, the alternatives I’ve used for 1/4 inch general cutter without any special coating are;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yonico-35314-SC-Router-Helix-Shank/dp/B00V7AR2H6

The Yonico cutters are far eastern commodity branded with a western sounding name, they’re pretty decent, wear reasonably well but I have little positive to say about dimensional accuracy.

The cutters from Rennie are pretty decent, especially for the price, I’ve used their upcut, spot drills, carbide drills and general drill bits and they were all fine.
They’ve got upcut;


and downcut;

APT post stuff pretty quickly (most of the time that means arrives quickly) but their larger cutters are metric so you’d need to find 6mm or 8mm collets for your router. I’ve been using their cutters for Aluminium and been impressed.
Up cut;


Down cut;

Or there’s the Whiteside cutters from these guys, not used them myself;
https://routercutter.co.uk/whiteside-ru2006

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