Fine detail Wood.

[GEOFFREY]

Of your available timbers hard maple would be my first choice then soft, beech, cherry , rose... If machining iroko( I assume that's what you mean ) you want very good dust extraction as the dust is carcinogenic ( and no wood dust is good for you)

NO DUST IS GOOD FOR YOU - wood or any almost other substance. G.

[Boyan Silyavski]

I have machined a lot of tiny forms /V cutter/ from Maple and Iroko. Both hold good detail but there are better woods. Nothing holds better detail than Ipe and similar exotic woods, speaking for small parts and details. Pear is the best general wood, as suggested before. All model builders i know of, use pear for the wood details.

I cut all wood at diameter depth and 16.000 RPM the soft woods and 17-18 000 RPM the harder ones 30IPM per flute, hence 60IPM for 2 flute cutter.Same speeds for V cutter. Yes, some may find these conservative but going faster or deeper does not help with fine details at all or wood splits. Smallish distance between cuts must not be less than 1.5mm

The sharper the cutter, the better. Always start with new cutter new job.

[Leadhead]

silyavski
Thanks for your advice, especially feeds and speeds.
Do you use small down flutes or straights? I currently only have miniatures in standard carbide up flutes.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Hi,
i use mainly Kyocera solid carbide bits from Drillman1 ebay. Very very sharp and cheap too. Small stuff i profile usually with 2 flutes fishtail bits. Generally i use 3mm/ 1/8" / bits for profiling. If you are planning to use smaller, you would have to lower the Feed rate even more. He has a lot of small bits. I use only Upcut.

For details and so i use V cutters, mainly 60 degree for general engraving. 3O degree is very sharp but you have to slow it down at least like 3 times from what i said before

if you need smaller than 3mm bits, the best he sells are the ones mounted on 6mm or 1/4 shank.

You need these, take note of the fishtail , not square end and how the flutes are deeper for a better chip removal. These will stay sharp longer time.




These below would work but its primary use is towards aluminum and you have to slow it down even further. They have X times worst chip cleaning than the fishtail. Though they are quite stronger as the flutes are not so deep.

[Boyan Silyavski]

ps. Forgot to tell you. The 3 FLUTE CARBIDE ENDMILLS - 0 HELIX Kyocera Tycom he sells are brutal. I use the 1/4 constantly and could say its the best ever router bit for wood i used. Now i saw that he has 1.6mm ones. and 2.4mm ones .

These are or could be even better than the 2 flutes fishtail in certain scenarios. I did not know he has so small of them. The photos does not do them justice, so sharp and shiny are they in reality. I like them better for soft woods especially if the wood has nasty fibers.

[Leadhead]

silyavski
Ordered some 1.6 from drillman1. Thanks, tested my schoolboy Spanish!!!!

[Boyan Silyavski]

ha ha, i send you the link from ebay.es , forgot about that.

The savings are considerable. For example what bit he sales for 6$ is 20€ here in Europe , from the German Kyocera branch.

[Leadhead]

silyavski
Thanks again for your detailed advice. On a quick look I do have a couple of fishtails, ashamed to say I never noticed that detail until you mentioned it. The links are particularly useful and will be no doubt adding my cutter box.
Appreciate your taking the time to help.