I'll tell you blokes something you may not know about the ends of steel bars. If they were cut with an abrasive chop saw, you need to grind the end of the bar back about 1/6" before trying to cut a key slot with an end mill. The chopsaw sorta case hardens the face of the cut. Found this out many years ago when I ruined a brand new HSS end mill.Jesse in cold, but sunny Troy TN On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 12:50 PM, stepney wrote: > Ahh, a "youngster", lol > > That could well be the case. As I said, these were all bar ends, so > could be of any type of steel, and cut off for any reason. > Around half-a-hundredweight of them, and very useful too (except for > this specific one! > Alan > > On 16/04/2012 10:04, peter chadwick wrote: >> This discussion suddenly triggered something in my failing memory - >> after all, I am 65 next month! >> Many years ago, I was told that steel bar ends because of drawing, >> chopping etc were often hard or starngely crystalline or whatever, >> but tended not to be homogenous like the rest of the bar. The guy who >> told me had been involved with production on autos, and siad that >> they had got into the habit of sawing off the first and last 6 to 9 >> inches of a 20 foot bar because otherwise they would often get >> quality problems, especially when they wanted to case harden the >> parts. >> Which could explain things. >> Peter Chadwick >> Swindon. >> >> >> > > MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. > > To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, > modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the > subject line. MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.