Bought two new Whiteside mills, 2 flute 1/4" shank, 1" cutting length and the sucker broke after 10 minutes.
The 2nd is also leaving these nasty tool marks. Easy enough to sand out with a one off piece but a real pain with the 130 handles I cut last week! Almost every handle needed extra attention, I had to spend a ton of extra time sanding. Grrrrr.
My first batch came out nice using the 201 the Pro 5 shipped with. But now even that 201 is leaving the marks so I worry the machine is out of alignment.
BTW Ive found the coated SharkBits 2 flute, 1/4" shank w/ 1" cutting length give a much better cut the the much lauded Whiteside.
You should probably tram your spindle so it is as close to perfectly perpendicular to your gantry motion plane as possible.
Other thing to look at is if your bits are seating properly into the collet of the router - be sure not to push the bit up into the collet as far as it can go or binding can cause the bit to sit crooked when the collet is tightened.
Lastly, if the router runout has become intolerable, usually due to bad bearings, then the bit may be cutting a larger diameter than intended.
If the carving detail in your pieces is looking good, I would think that tramming your spindle would clear up most/all of your outline cutting marks.
After seeing a post from John @TDA , I always make sure no matter what, the end mill is seated properly.
And I always do a pre-flight check - making sure all the fittings are tight and periodically I vacuum and clean as much dust and chips as I can.
My old spindle burned out, of course in the middle of cutting these handles, and the guys sent me a replacement - thank you support! Cant say enough good things about those cats! (@WillAdams@Josh Stupnik)
When I attached and powered up, as it was initializing and returning to the back right side, this little plastic sucker jammed between the switch and the spindle holder thingy.
It made an ungodly thud and jammed to a stop. The sound made me swallow my teeth.
Motion said I was out of alignment. I freed the piece, re initialized and still gave me the errors. I did see the gantry skew a bit but correct itself as it returned to the back - but before the jam.
(long week, think that was the chain of events in order)
I powered off and on and it fired up no problems, sigh of relief.
Just found Winston’s tram video so Ill go thru that. That must be it.
I think my table is a little off level, and three attempts of removing everything to make sure its square, I am still off by about 1/16", could these two issues be the culprit? Since it just started I think not but still unsure.
123 Blocks work really well getting your carriage squared to your base. Highly recommend. Even with a perfectly trammed machine, tool deflection still happens and can cause you to still get those marks.
I also used shims for the X portion of the Z square.
If you can’t stomach the sanding I totally agree with Merick01. I run a clean up pass often. When we cut things out in steps at respectable speeds these layer lines are a fact of CNC routing. I cut a lot of parts in my shop but I don’t mind sanding, it’s part of my whole process. Try a .01" offset and adjust till your lines diminish.
Well sure, no getting around sanding. Doing that quite a bit on trays with great results.
Its not the sanding as much as trouble shooting and if I can adjust to eliminate then its a no brainer.
The first batch of 40 handles sides were perfectly smooth with the #201 my Pro 5 shipped . The lines appeared after the gantry jammed so thats an issue I need to address.
A few or one off piece fine, but I sanded 130 handles with my orbital and it took up most of my day.
Precision has to start somewhere — it’s a lot easier having a level table as a starting point, then being able to square things up from a reference plane for consistency’s sake.
Ok, but a bubble level doesn’t say precision reference plane.
We should be encouraging new users of machines to place their machines on a precisely flat table for the reference plane. The precision of the manufactured items should handle it after that.
One of the first things I learned before I bought my pro 5.
My garage is graded out of course so I leveled my table with 2x4’s under the struts, ended up 3 wheels off the floor but Im dead level and I regularly check it.
One the plywood table it sits on all around, then on the table spoil board on all the rapid position points.
Personally I only use AMANA Bits and has never had a problem .
They are distributed by Tools Today.
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I was having similar tracking problems and obtained an SST Mill and Lathe Tramming System. It allows you to easily check tram in all x/y directions and made a world of improvement.
Also, to correct the y axis by shimming the VFD mounting plate, I disassembled an inexpensive feeler gauge. The leaves make excellent shims with many thickness options.
Tramming works best if you have a super flat surface like special glass or granite that has been machined flat. I use granite but have to raise the router in the mount to have enough room for the SST gauge.
I found a video online of a guy showing his procedure. He would put the glass down and the run the gauge across various spots including the corners and shim where necessary so that the needle stays pretty consistent across the entire area. Then do the normal tramming procedure.
