Hey all. This probably shows my newbie status… I just cut a large C out of white oak and got a lot of chipping on the endgrain. Not so much along the top edge, which is to be expected (was an upcut bit) but on the side itself. It’s like the endgrain broke off rather than sheared. Similar to using a dull plane or chisel on endgrain. The bit was brand new, 1/4" upcut spiral bit from SpeTool. The machine is a Shapeoko 5 Pro with a 1/4" spindle. My feed rate was about 80 IPM and cut depth was .15 inches per pass. Do you think this is user error (too high feed rate, etc.), is this the nature of cutting white oak (the devils wood IMO), or is it tooling issue? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Try a downcut tool? I’ve had good luck w/ them in red oak.
Also make sure you’re climb cutting.
Roughing to anywhere from 0.005 - 0.050", soaking the endgrain with a good filler sealer, then finish cutting can also reduce a lot of chipout.
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