![]() If you want to do vcarve type signs get a couple of vee bits, usually a 90 and a 60. ![]() 1/8 and 1/16 are good and I personally like 1/32 but I won't recommend them to a beginner. If you want to do small details get smaller bits. Then buy others as you need them.Īny idea what type of projects? The 1/4 endmill is the workhorse of the hobby cnc. 2 flat mills and 2 ball nose are a good start, buy in pairs so when one breaks or gets dull, it doesn’t stop a project. Remember that a 1/8 has to do twice the passes to take out the same amount of wood as a 1/4. Plywood works better with downcut as and example, but compression cuts in both directions and is very popular right now.įirst decide what base size you want- 1/4 or 1/8, that will be determined by the types of project you want to do. Upcut, downcut and compression refer to the direction of the spiral. Detailed 3d relief carvings require a very fine point ball end but that’s a bit more advanced. Square end will be square, ball will have fillets. The end profile determines what the bottom of a pocket will look like. If you have a 1/4” bit, an inside fillet can’t be any smaller than 1/4”. The size of the bit determines how tight an inside corner can be. Don’t rely on Amazon for quality bits, I like Bits&Bits. I have some 1/8” for places where it’s necessary to get into tight places. But for any real project my main bit is a 1/4” square end 2 flute. ![]() Get some 1/8 cheap bits from Amazon to learn with because you will break several at first. So with all these things combined, depending on the nature of your job, you can come up with different strategies to optimize your cuts.įor example, if you are making ashtrays (a deep pocket and a perimeter cutout) you might hog out the pocket and most of the perimeter with a big 2-flute upcut, then finish the pocket and take the perimeter to size with a small 2-flute downcut, and then finish the cutout with either a small 2-flute upcut, or, if you get lucky enough to find a compression bit the size of your walls, do final cutout with a small 2-flute compression. This doesn't splinter either side, but because the chips are squeezed together, requires good chip extraction vacuum A "downcut" bit, which spirals the opposite way, can reduce/eliminate splintering on the topside, with the tradeoffs of being much worse at chip evacuation (needing good vacuum extraction at the tool) and splintering at cut-through on the bottom side of the part įor single-pass cutouts, you can get a "compression" bit, which is upcut on its lower portion and downcut on its upper portion. Wood's one weird characteristic is that it likes to splinter (to a degree dependent on species) when cutting shear forces lift out of the material, as is the case on 99% of all cutters. What can help is a reduced flute count - 2 flute or 1 flute cutters. Hobby routers normally have very high RPM, but slow-ish feeds, so it can sometimes be hard to hit the FPT targets (because the feed you need to drive that much RPM is faster than the machine can go). For a cutter to work optimally, it needs to live in its FPT happy place. This is called "feed per tooth" and is normally expressed as thousandths of an inch per tooth. There is a relationship between the RPM of the cutter and the feed at which it is fed into the material. The shorter the cutter, the more rigid it is, so always use the shortest cutter you can The larger the diameter of the cutter, the more rigid it is, and the harder it can be pushed - so always use the biggest cutter you can The fact that you are working with wood simplifies things (wood is soft) but the basics apply: Any advice would be greatly appreciated.Cutting tool science is a deep, deep rabbit hole that can take a lot of learning to master, especially with metals. the cheap stuff I use for playing around. I'm willing to spend the money to get good stuff for these "production" jobs vs. So with all that said, what would be some good quality end mills (and where to order them online) that will give my profiles and pockets a nice finish while still letting me go fast? I assume carbide, but I'm unsure about the real quality difference between brands and the like. I'm assuming finishing passes will be used as needed. In general, I'll need most of the profiling to be done with 1/8" - 1/4" endmills due to the radius of the curves. ![]() I have a max spindle speed of 6k and a travel speed of ~120 IPM. 09375 specifically) as well as some shallow pocketing. I'll be doing a huge amount of profiling, a little drilling (.125 and. To that end, I'm cutting thin aluminum series 30-T6 that's either. Now that I've got a nice real CNC mill to do some production jobs I need to step up the quality and production speed. Up until now, I've always used junk uncoated HSS enmills from Enco. Hi all due to the amazing response everyone gave me on the work holding question, I thought I'd ask another question here.
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