Hi Everyone, I am Emmanuel Katto. I’m currently working on a project that involves carving some intricate designs into wood using my CNC machine, and I’d love to gather some insights on the best practices for achieving detailed results. I wanted to know:
What type of end mills or bits do you recommend for carving detailed designs in hardwood? Are there specific brands or styles that you find particularly effective?
What are your go-to strategies for setting up toolpaths when working on detailed designs? Do you have specific settings for ramping, scaling, or stepovers that you find yield the best quality?
How do you decide on the appropriate feed rates and spindle speeds for detailed work? Are there any formulas or rules of thumb that you typically follow?
I appreciate any advice or experiences you can share that will help me improve the quality of my carvings. Thank you for your support!
The first consideration is what sort of decorative work are you doing?
V endmills are used for V carvings (along with square endmills for pocket clearing) while usually ball-nosed tools are used for 3D designs.
I find ramping in (afforded as an option in Carbide Create Pro) can help a lot, and the biggest thing is leaving a roughing clearance and taking a finishing pass for contours where any sort of deflection will show.
For feeds and speeds I mostly use the defaults in Carbide Create — the community has discussed this quite a bit, and there is a page on it at:
To add to what @WillAdams suggested are several things. The type of wood makes a big difference. Things like oak are grainy and stringy and is hard so it is not the most attractive wood for doing intricate carving. Close grained wood like cherry and maple do well for carving. But the choice of wood is up to your individual preference. Even oak can be good but for me it is not the best wood.
For me I use down cut bits a lot. Upcut buts work well but tend to leave a rougher top edge but again it depends on the use case. I use 1/4" 1/8", 1/32" and 1/16" flat end mill bits a lot as well as 60/20/15 degree vee bits a lot. That depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
Also important is how you will finish your project. If you are going to paint things with acrylic paint it is advisable to seal the wood. If you are going to use epoxy to fill the sealing is important because air bubbles come up through the wood and erupt on the surface of the epoxy. I like to use Zinsser Universal Sanding Sealer because it is compatible with both water and oil based finishes. It also makes the surface of the wood harder and leaves less fuzzies behind when carving fine detail.