I have a specific project that would benefit from a 1/16" compression(upcut downcut) endmill.
Does anyone know if something like this exists. I have looked around at a couple of my regular sources without alot of luck. Assuming 1/8" shank diameter. Needs roughly .25" cut length.
1/4" DOC seems much, but Stewmac has a selection of downcutting endmills, Carbide Downcut Inlay Router Bits - StewMac
Thanks, I am specifically looking for a compression bit, which has up cut flutes at the very tip of the cutter and down cut further up.
Closest I can find are 0.125
It may be possible someone makes it but a 1/16" bit is very delicate and compression bits are designed to make full depth cuts in plywood. So there might be a unicorn out there but doubtful.
Sorry, I doubt you will find that. I use them extensively at work and have never come across a 1/16" diameter. Smallest I have seen is 1/8".
Harvey tool has something close
https://www.harveytool.com/products/tool-details-994362
I am waiting to get a quote on for a custom tool with a 1/4" LOC. Since my plywood it .185" thick this one wont work.
Pretty neat. Be careful not to fill up your flutes when cutting with it. Chip clearing with such a small end mill at about 3x the diameter in depth will be a pretty big issue on a type of tool that doesn’t clear chips well to begin with. Are you slotting with it or just using it as a finishing tool?
I use a 2mm end mill with no helix and 15mm flute length when I cut out my plywood clock gears and it works a treat. I can go down in several cuts as opposed to using a full width cut needed for a compression bit. I usually paint both surfaces with clear coat epoxy beforehand but there is little tearout even without. There is no natural chip evacuation so you need to be vacuuming all the time.Cheers
Mike
Full depth slotting in .185" plywood is the goal. Trying to achieve clean top and bottom edges while still running at full DOC. I have successfuly ran 2 flut upcuts with no issues other than fraying on the top edge that requires sanding. The packed chips actually keep the parts in place and dont require the use of tabs. If I do that I cant use vacuum though otherwise it will pull up the parts.
What kind of parts are you cutting out? I would be very impressed if you can get a 1/16" compression cutter to successfully cut 3x the diameter DOC in plywood with no chip clearing/dust collection. We cut plywood with compression cutters all day at my business and it works well but they have their limitations. When going more than 2x the diameter in DOC when slotting your room for error gets very small. You can sometimes mitigate this with a special cutter with a longer than normal upcut section or some sort of air blast. The smaller the tool, the more difficult deep slotting becomes.
ya i dont know if its worth the $50 to try out a cutter or just live with the sanding. I am going to prefinish the next parts and see if that helps the fraying at all.
Do you have to use a 1/16" endmill? Is it possible to adjust the design so you don’t have to? Cutting 1/8" endmill at that depth would be no issue. I would still recommend doing tabs or vacuum workholding depending on the part.
for now I need to stick with the 1/16" it didnt give me any trouble except some extra sanding. We will see how the prefinished plywood does. If I end up pushing the compression cutter I will update this thread with my results.
If you measure the distance from the bottom of the tool to the start of the downcut flutes then you only need to go a bit further down on your first cut to get the benefits of the downcut part of the compression bit. After that it’s the upcut part that will do it’s thing on the final cut to not splinter the bottom of the stock. This would prevent having to do full stock height cuts.
Yep I understand that, for speed and efficiency I want to cut these in one pass. I will have to cut around 1300 parts so all time savings will be huge.
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