After cutting some furniture items out of 1 inch white oak plywood (appleply) the bit (0.25inch compression) was very dull, after another project with just two benches cut from 4 pieces 60x80cm 0.75 white oak plywood the upcut bit 0.25 under the microscope was clearly dull.
So now I have some questions to the ones with experience:
Is oak really that hard to the bits?
What bit brands would be the best (hardest) ones? Mine were Armana, IMO a brand with good reputation?
There are some re-sharpening services. Is it worth to have the bits resharpened? To replace tools after 2 sheets of plywood appears rather expensive.
Some woods have a lot of resin in them (not sure about oak). Make sure to clean them every so often. Also, remember any plywood will have a glue of sorts, which is not kind on sharp edges.
Other than the microscope did you find your cutting quality to be lower at all? That’s how I try to judge the “dullness” of a bit, if the finish quality is changing.
I’d say your feeds and speeds also matter. Are you getting nice chips or mainly dust? In the latter case there would be a lot of rubbing forces.
Anecdotal of course, but I like Whiteside.
I work with MDF a lot, which is quite abrasive. I was able to do a real head to head test, same feeds and speeds, same material, same types of projects. I had an Amana Spektra coated 1/4" bit absolutely trashed after running about 20 hours. Cut quality dropped off and inspection under magnification showed why. The Whiteside bit (at half the price) that I replaced it with has over 26 hours on it and it still looks brand new.
I know this isn’t the case here, but when I had my AVID Pro machine, I’d run full depth cuts with a compression bit. With my HDM I tend to do pretty deep cuts with a straight flute bit. This is similar, just don’t plunge with it.
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