Patent ID: 6974280

Claim:
A rotary metal cutting tool comprising: a tool body in the form of a circular disk having a center and a periphery, with an axis of rotation passing through the center of the disk and a plurality of chip clearance recesses opening outwardly from and spaced angularly around the disk periphery, each chip clearance recess having a leading end and a trailing end, said axis of rotation defining a plane of rotation; a plurality of insert receiving pockets, each insert receiving pocket having an associated chip clearance recess and comprising a tangentially extending pocket base parallel to said axis of rotation, said pocket base having a leading end and a trailing end, the leading end of the pocket base being adjacent the trailing end of the associated chip clearance recess and the trailing end of the pocket base being connected to a generally radially extending pocket rear surface; a plurality of indexable cutting inserts, each cutting insert comprising an upper surface, a lower surface and a peripheral side surface therebetween, the peripheral side surface comprising four component side surfaces, each component side surface being joined to an adjacent side surface by a side corner, a first opposite pair of the component side surfaces forming front and rear component side surfaces, each component side surface meeting the upper and lower surfaces at upper and lower component cutting edges, respectively, at least outer portions of each upper and lower component cutting edge extending generally inwardly from adjacent side corners and at least outer portions of each component side surface extending generally inwardly from adjacent side corners, each cutting insert being removably retained in a given insert receiving pocket, wherein the lower surface of the cutting insert abuts the tangentially extending pocket base, the rear component side surface of the cutting insert abuts the radially extending pocket rear surface at two spaced apart abutment surfaces, the front component side surface forming a rake surface and the upper component cutting edge of the front component side surface forming an operative cutting edge.