A large range of cutters are available. They are generally made from high speed steel which means they will cut through metals such as mild steel and aluminium. Some of the profiles (shapes) of the cutters are shown below.
Cylindrical cutters are used to remove a lot of waste material from a surface. More detailed cutters, such as concave cutters, are used to machine a shape onto a surface.
When machining with any of these cutters it is important to use coolant (soluble oil) as the cutter will heat up as well as the material being machined. The coolant cools the cutters and the material which means that the expensive cutters last longer. It is also necessary to remove material a little at a time. Several slow passes over the material may be needed to manufacture the desired shape.

UP-MILLING

The safest way to machine a piece of metal using a horizontal miller is to feed the metal into the cutter, against its rotation. This is called up-milling and it is the technique used in school workshops. The metal must be held very firmly in a large machine vice, usually a nylon or leather mallet is used to hammer round the handle of the vice to ensure it is extremely tight.

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