Making a MASSIVE Fly Cutter

Welcome back to the manual machine shop! In this video I’ll be taking on everybody’s favorite cutting tool. The fly cutter But of course I will be putting my own flare on it, by making it MASSIVE. And not only that, it will also be adjustable in diameter and will accept tungsten carbide inserts. The motivation for the project comes from yet another project where I will need to be able to fly cut a plate 9 inches wide. As normal for my projects, the engineering behind all this is done on a good old fashioned drafting board. The build will be made up of several components, made from different materials I already had laying around the shop. An R8 arbor to match my vertical milling machine will be press fit into a large aluminum wheel that makes up the bulk of the cutter. But to make the cutter adjustable, a separate insert holder will mount on the wheel via slots. Some other miscellaneous hardware round at this build. And as many will be pleased to see, I’m actually black oxiding the parts this time! But mostly for looks 😉


2 responses to “Making a MASSIVE Fly Cutter”

  1. Hi Brandon,

    I am a great fan of your videos and admire your will to reach perfection, be it regarding the machining or the quality of your videos.

    I happen to also be a mechanical engineer and I have a certain implication in our machine shop. We are always on the look for “intelligent” and useful jobs for our apprentices and I think some of the parts and systems you conceive and machine in your videos could fit perfectly. Is there any chance we could obtain a copy of the drawings for these parts (in particular the fly cutter)?

    Thanks in avance for your reply.
    Kind regards all the way from Switzerland.
    Nils