Talk:Burr (cutter)

Vs. endmill?

After being linked here from die grinder, I expected to see a picture of a small tool covered in abrasive. Instead, I see what looks a lot (although not quite) like a tiny endmill. What's the difference? I see two potential differentiators: random vs. engineered position of cutting edges and existence or lack of flutes to remove chips. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 14:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I've never heard of the abrasive covered mandrels called "burrs", only toothed bits. I usually call what you are referring to as "grinding stones", although I'm not sure this is correct. Wizard191 (talk) 21:33, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't give any official rule for differentiating them (burrs/rotary files versus endmills). I think the factors you mentioned are good suggestions ("random vs. engineered position of cutting edges and existence or lack of flutes to remove chips"), although I am ignorant of any "official" guideline. I agree with what Wizard191 said about the abrasive type—in my region we'd call them grinding stones or grinding bits (I'm picturing the type you run in Dremels or die grinders when I say that—like this one). As for the toothed type, a burr/rotary file is like a hand file in its tooth design—many little teeth rather than fewer larger ones. I don't know how a legal boundary would be drawn on that (would have to be somewhat arbitrary), but if I saw this, I'd definitely call it a "burr" rather than a "small ball-nose mill". Although objectively one could argue that there's no good reason for that. An emic-vs-etic thing, it seems to me. — ¾-10 23:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)