The need to sand after routing

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Leo
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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by Leo »

The fuzzies are a tough one. You will notice they occur on the same grain orientation in little groups. They are a difficult issue for anyone.

Maple is a good choice for fine detail and minimal "fuzzies". Oak and Ash is just going to be difficult, Pine is near impossible to not get fuzzies.

Hard Dense woods carve better than soft or open grain woods. Oak and Ash are hard, but they are open grain woods. Maple is a hard dense wood.

You can try orienting the cutting direction to be inline with the grain. I would also tighten up the stepover. Often tines I will stepover .002 - .001. Yes, it is a LOT of passes, but the finish is unbelievable, better than sanded.

You can try an additional cutting pass at 90 degrees orientation from the first pass.

REALLY REALLY sharp cutters - good quality cutters. Ebay cheap cutters "might" work, but they might not.

Personally I have good luck with Think & Tinker 1/8 tapered ball nose, and Burchette tapered ball nose.

Keep the cutter as short as possible in the collet.
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dwilli9013
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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by dwilli9013 »

Leo wrote:The fuzzies are a tough one. You will notice they occur on the same grain orientation in little groups. They are a difficult issue for anyone.

Maple is a good choice for fine detail and minimal "fuzzies". Oak and Ash is just going to be difficult, Pine is near impossible to not get fuzzies.

Hard Dense woods carve better than soft or open grain woods. Oak and Ash are hard, but they are open grain woods. Maple is a hard dense wood.

You can try orienting the cutting direction to be inline with the grain. I would also tighten up the stepover. Often tines I will stepover .002 - .001. Yes, it is a LOT of passes, but the finish is unbelievable, better than sanded.

You can try an additional cutting pass at 90 degrees orientation from the first pass.

REALLY REALLY sharp cutters - good quality cutters. Ebay cheap cutters "might" work, but they might not.

Personally I have good luck with Think & Tinker 1/8 tapered ball nose, and Burchette tapered ball nose.

Keep the cutter as short as possible in the collet.


Thanks for the tip on the Ball Nose bits Leo.
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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by adze_cnc »

"mservis",

I agree with others that more detail is good. I'd add that the more relevant the details the better. For example "50.0 feed rate". Is that 50mm/second, 50 miles/day, 50 microns/nanosecond? Or stating that the 3D step-over is 10%. Ten percent of what? A 2" ball-end bit?

Yes, I am being flippant but hopefully you get the point.

As for fuzzies. Sometimes I'll run a "rough" finishing pass with a ball-bit and larger step-over rate to purposefully get the fuzzies then run a "fine" finishing pass to clear them up plus the other material left behind. It's not always fool-proof though.

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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by Rcnewcomb »

As others have said,
Try changing your raster to cut the same direction as the grain.
Apply a sanding sealer before cutting
I highly recommend the bits from beckwithdecor.com. They are beastly expensive and worth every penny.

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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by dwilli9013 »

Thank you as well Randall,
You are not kidding they are beastly expensive.
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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by ChrisInEstes »

dwilli9013 wrote:Thank you as well Randall,
You are not kidding they are beastly expensive.
I've got Beckwith's ZRN coated 3 piece set a couple years back. I still think "I paid THAT much for 3 bits?!" :shock: However... they cut as good now as they did when I got 'em. If they had a 1/32" version, I'd get one.

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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by Larry Stobbs »

For what it is worth I cut mainly kiln dried walnut and cherry and some projects come out with very little sanding and some have areas that need some extra work. I don't know how to explain it other than certain wood blanks have a grain pattern when combined with what gets cut by the machine results in some "fuzz" similar to what your picture looked like. Playing around with this, I think most of what I have had had to do with the wood being used except in cases in which I was using a cutter that was going dull. I have found that if you get a small set of rifter rasps or miniature files that come in various shapes you can often get rid of the fuzzies without much effort and they can get into places that is hard to reach with sandpaper.

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Re: The need to sand after routing

Post by Adrian »

You generally get what you pay for with bits. I stopped using some 1/4" spiral bits a while ago because they were so expensive and switched to another well known brand that was half the price. Although they cut just as well they wear out in 3 days (yes, I did try different feeds/speeds etc despite the geometry of the tools being the same) compared to nearly 2 weeks I got out of the other ones so I switched back. I tried some really cheap bits off eBay as well but they wear out after one sheet so end up being ridiculously expensive.

I've got a set of Beckwith bits as well and they're still going strong five years later although I only tend to do a couple of small 3D jobs a month.

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