This is probably something that’s an obvious observation, but asking to be certain.
I’ve been using a 1/4 downcut end mill to cut out some cherry, and its started to leave some ‘curly shag’ (for not knowing a real/better name for it) on one side of the grain. Every pass below the surface is fine.
Time to bin it?
If it’s only on one side I’d suspect it’s just a wood grain thing. Wood is anisotropic (varies with direction) and irregular so localized problems are usually related to grain. Are you doing a rough/finish cut strategy?
It may just be the wood grain, but just in case, get a loupe and have a close look at the flutes, especially the very tip. It’s easy to overlook a chipped tip of a flute (the most fragile part). With a good loupe you can also spot dull cutting edges, but it’s more subtle
I was just going a circular (coaster, many of them) cutout at 0.04" per pass. The finish for that edge is a 90° chamfer, so it doesn’t affect the overall outcome, but it looked different that it had on all the previous cuts on other cherry boards.
@Julien good thought on the loupe. My wife uses one for some of her work, so I’ll see if she’ll trust me to borrow it for a few minutes!
Thank you both!
As David says, could be the wood and a roughing plus finishing strategy is generally going to give better finish quality.
However, depending on the hours you have on the cutter and what sort of material you’ve been cutting (MDF) it could be losing it’s really sharp edge. That doesn’t mean it’s junk.
I have a pile of old Yonico (Amazon) 1/4" upcut bits which I use for roughing and then a selection of newer cutters which are upcut / downcut / compression bits which I only use for finishing passes so they don’t clock up the hours the same way the roughing cutters do.
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