Can End Mills Be sharpened (Milling Machine)?

[DanHayman]

Hi.
I am new to the machine. My father gave it to me, primarily to sharpen wood turning tooling. However, I am also interested in keeping my metal milling tooling sharp and have not yet found any posts which seem to address this.
So, suppose I have a 4 or 6 fluted flat nosed end mill. Unlike drill bits which cut from the top, end mills do most of their work from on the side. Is there a jig, or a process which would help to sharpen these HSS tools up?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Dan

[Jeff Farris]

I'm not an expert in metal working tools, but I don't think the Tormek would be appropriate for end mills.

[DanHayman]

Thanks for your reply.

I guess I need to keep researching this, but, I wonder if you could chuck the end mill up in a cordless drill or some such and spin the end-mill against the spinning wet stone? Seems to me that a jig which would allow you to support the drill (most generic holding spot is on the neck, but there are a small percentage of drills which do not have a neck of sorts) and end mill at a given angle against the stone, would do the trick. Or, possibly the SVD-185 (which I have) could be utilized, temporarily modified in such a way that the neck (shank) of the end-mill could be mounted and then you would sharpen more or less as you would a turning cutter (you would also have to add an up and down/forward and back movement to your sharpening process).
These are just some thoughts. If you have any ideas on how to accomplish any of this, I would LOVE to know and or discuss some ideas. Could be that there is an additional jig or marketing niche in which to market existing jigs, if this can be made to work well.

Regards,
Dan