So I’m trying to order a couple new bits I think I need. I’m not sure what the differences in a couple things are. I just did my first flag this weekend and used a foos 60 degree 1/4” shank v bit to carve the stars and a logo design. I see a lot of other people using the fatter carbide point v carving bits in 60 and 90 degrees. They come in different widths (1/2” vs 7/16). How does all this play when cutting different stuff and how do I decide what I should get? Just need some help with getting a better knowledge of the bits and how they work and what they do. Thanks for any suggestions.
The different widths would influence the widest part you could cut — a 1/2" endmill could cut a (slightly) larger star than a 7/16"
Taper angle results in deeper cuts for sharper tapers with potentially better detailing — guideline for relating feature size to text size at: https://wiki.shapeoko.com/index.php/Endmills#V-bits
- <1" 45–60°
- 1–2" 60°
- 2–4" 60–90°
- 4–6" 90°
- 6–10" 90 to 120°
- >10" 120° or greater
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So I think I understand this for letters. For graphics, the logo I cut out looks good but in my opinion the bit went deep and because of the depth and width of the cut some of the finer detail may have been lost. So to correct this if I used a 60 degree bit, should I switch to a 90? And this is in reference to a logo you helped me with last week on a flag that had overlapping geometry. Thank you!
You have two conflicting issues:
- cut went too deep — this argues for less acute endmill
- finer detail lost — this argues for a more acute one.
I would suggest breaking the file up and using different endmills on different sections/areas, and possibly adding geometry so as to depth limit things. Please see:
and
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