I recently bought a little used router table with a couple problems. The hole that holds the drop in plate was overcut beyond the 9x12 standard size needed. To fix it, I’ll recut the drop-in hole in the table on my Shapeoko. I bought an 11x15 phenolic plate that must be resized to the new hole that I cut on the CNC. I’ve never cut that type of material before. Does it work like any piece of hardwood? Does any one bit work better than another. What about feeds and speeds? Thanks.
I will let others comment on the machining. However I would give a little advise on the router mount. If you are going to drop your router plate into another plate then make the bigger plate at least 2" bigger than your insert. The reason is if you cut it too narrow it can droop and cause your router plate to droop with it. Additionally you need to be able to level both plates. I would recommend you cut a lip in the router table that will let you drill some holes and put some bolts in to level the larger plate. Then repeat on the larger plate inner cutout for your router plate. You need to have both plates level or you will have problems using the router table. You can put a metal insert in for the female threads or just use a tap in the table top material. An insert would likely be better but again that depends on how much thickness you have left. Very thin material will not hold threads very well. However the insert even if longer than your material can stick out the bottom and just use a drop or two of CA glue on the threads when you install the threaded inserts.
Another consideration for your router plate is your router mounting holes. There are a lot of good references for different routers on the hole patterns. Jessum has a good one. If your router is not in this document than look at your OEM maker for their specifications.
03100_-_Rout-R-Plate_Manual.pdf (2.1 MB)
For machining this I would use the center instead of the lower left as many use. You want your router mount to be dead center of the plate. I use the bottom as my material so I do not over cut into my spoilboard. You set your X and Y by lining up a vee bit with the center of your material. You simply draw a line from corner to corner of your material and where the X is drawn that is center. Then move your router off the material to a clear spot on the spoilboard and either use the paper method or the BitZero to set the spoilboard (bottom) as Z zero.
@BeachBlues Wayne, I think the general feeds and speeds recommendations for plastics is ‘fast or faster’ for feed then set the RPM for a sensible chip load. Using an O-Flute (1 flute) will clear the chips effectively and help take the cutting heat away - for plastics, heat will melt the material and cause the cutter to clog.
Faster Feed = cutting = no/less rubbing = less heat.
@Julien can hopefully offer some more specific cutting recipes.
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I’m not sure about a phenolic plate, but it seems similar enough to Richlite which is paper fibers in phenolic resin, and I have cut some of that, see this thread:
Contour cuts with that 2-flute 1/8" endmill were also 18k RPM / 45ipm / 0.5mm per pass.
That said, I was being conservative in that project, Richlite is expensive and I did not feel like experimenting to optimize cutting speed.
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