I have been working on reproducing Victorian house details with my new Shapeoko 5 Pro and so far it’s going well, but …
There are several 2D “gingerbread elements” for the house that I need to cut out and they have particularly sharp angles (intersecting circles) so I really need to use a 1/16" endmill for my finishing pass. I am using the trusty #201 endmill for the bulk of the work so I only need the 1/16" for sharpening the product. The problem is that these elements need to be cut from 1-3/8" thick stock, which is well beyond the LOC for typical 1/16" endmills. I’ve found a few extended reach/extra long cut endmills that might work but I just want to make sure there isn’t something I am overlooking before I try this.
I have done a couple things in that 1/16 endmill length struggle - not sure any of these will help you though.
(1) I have used the standard 1/16 endmill at max depth (about 1/4” as I recall) to run around and do the details and left the deeper material behind. The visual depending on what you are cutting usually looks pretty good.
(2) doing the same as (1) but using it as a template for what has to be removed and then gone back with a file or a keyhole saw and removed the deeper material.
(3) which is very shape dependent - drill out 1/16 or other appropriately size holes as the first operation before removing the bulk of the material with a larger endmill and then coming back and filing off any remaining material.
There is no 1/16" router bit that will cut 1 3/8" deep. The 1/16" bit is just too delicate to plunge that deep even if they made a 1/16" bit that was that long. A 1/16" bit would flop around and likely break even with a very small stepover.
I am sure you want your gingerbread to look sharp but lets remember most of the gingerbreak trim is seen from a long way away. So having extremely sharp detail would be a waste of your time and effort. Now maybe trim around a door where people will be up close you could just use a file to sharpen up the edges in the intricate turns but even that would be barely noticeable to the average viewer of the trim.
I understand the desire to make a quality product but at some point you wind up chasing your tail over details in the long term are not very noticeable. AS @PhilG suggested make the front facing look sharp but ignore the rest. The human eye can only get so resolute and only a trim carpenter would ever notice that only the edge was cut sharply. The average person coming to your front door would never notice the detail.
You need to find an end mill with a 1/16 shank long enough. Rough out with larger e.m. then finish with 1/16…take small cuts. The sides of the tool will rub but should be fine. I machine oak 1.25 dp. with .062 radius corners. Hopefully you have a vfd spindle. Trim routers are o.k. but vfd is smoother, quiet, less runout.
This may be a project that requires hand finishing. As pointed out you won’t find a 1/16" endmill that long. And if you did, the second it hit material, it would snap. If get what I could with a 1/4", then use tools like a coping saw, chissels, etc to get the pointy bits.
I have a decent amount of experience with 1/16th end mills for my flags. I’ve looked at tons of manufacturers etc and broken a TON of the bits.
The short, the longest you can really get is a .75 DOC. That’s actually a reduced shank bit. You need to run really slow, like 10-15 IPM otherwise you’ll be breaking bits all day. BitsBits makes the bit, they are really good, I pretty much only use their tooling these days, have had good luck with them.
Hog as much as you can with larger bits, 1/4, 1/8 etc and then 1/16th for whatever fine details you need.
You won’t be able to reach down 1-3/8" straight, period. If that’s the depth but there is other stuff cut around it that you can could reach that low because the tooling will clear, then it might be possible.
Thank you all! This has been super helpful. I want concerned about the finer details because some of the elements on the house were close enough to visitors that that they are within arms reach. With freshly-cut samples the lack of detail is a bit obvious, however, they key turned out to be … paint.
With a couple coats of house paint the CNC-cut piece isn’t evident at all. If anything I think I can get away with a longer 1/8" bit for slightly finer details instead of a 1/16" bit if I need a closer cut.
