Thanks for some useful tips.

I've just tried cutting a few shapes both conventional and climb cutting.

Climb cutting seems easier on the ear, less vibration, but it tries to pull the wood into the cutter when going across the the grain. I beefed up my clamping a bit to fix that.

There was a bit of fuzziness along the grain, but I can live with that, and it seems to have improved after the cutter had done a few hundred pieces, not sure why that should be (I'm using solid carbide, compression spiral, two flutes).

I'm leading into the start of the profile with a radius, and also breaking out with a radius, to blend with a straight edge. That eliminated the tearing problem at the start of the cut with climb cutting, but it didn't with conventional cutting when breaking out at the end of the cut.

So after some experimenting I've chosen climb cut.

It's down to trial and error I know, but your insights helped inform some of my guesswork.

Thanks again.