I started looking the a 80mm spindle from C3D and was wondering where folks were getting their tool bits.
Search here for different brands and recommendations, everyone is loyal or swears by a particular brand. It also depends on how often you’re going to use the machine and what you plan on making - you can get away with cheap Chinesium bits or pay a premium for Whiteside or comparable brands with top-quality carbide. In my experience, most bits are going to have similar lifespans for our machine, so brand doesn’t matter as much because we can’t push the machine to any sort of extreme that the high-end bits like Amana are rated for. We quickly run into heat issues which degrade the bit life once you max-out a Shapeoko. In general more expensive bits will be sharper and stay sharper for longer, but you’d be splitting hairs for most applications.
That said, I like Whiteside and Highcountry Tools. Cheap bits from SpeTools or Yonico on Amazon are suitable for learning and most hobby work. Pretty much any brand will carry both 1/4" as well as 3/8" and 1/2" diameter bits that the 80mm spindle can accept.
I bought a few of the Cadence Mfg bits for the 65 MM spindle, love them.
Have you found bits with as similar as possible geometries ?
I need to check your suggestions.
Reflection:
So I was driving to my Dr appointment and it dawned on me that I am would be using larger bits for clearing major amounts ( relatively ) and I would stay with the smaller bits I already have.
Whew … That was a revelation .
All good ! Thanks
Yeah that’s all kinds that would match the Jenny bits fairly well. Some companies will specialize in tapered carving bits while other will cater to profiling/chip clearing.