Bits

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electrictermite
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Bits

Post by electrictermite »

moving from 2d into the 3d carving. before I buy bits what are the sizes you have for roughing cut and ball nose finishing. I do not want to guess at what I need to get.

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Rcnewcomb
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Re: BITS

Post by Rcnewcomb »

moving from 2d into the 3d carving.
What are the dimensions of your projects, and what material?
That will affect the answer.
- Randall Newcomb
10 fingers in, 10 fingers out, another good day in the shop

electrictermite
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Re: BITS

Post by electrictermite »

Carve King so the max is 17" by 17". pine, oak, cedar

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Rcnewcomb
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Re: BITS

Post by Rcnewcomb »

A 1/4" or even a 1/2" end mill should be fine for roughing -- though some projects such as dish carvings don't need the roughing toolpath as long as your finish bit has a long enough cutting length.

For finishing a 1/8" ball nose with a 1/2" cutting length will work well. Look for 2 flute bits rather than 4 flute. I've used bits from Accupro, Centurion, Hertel, Garr, Niagra, and Onsrud

For finer detail, but longer cutting times, a 1/16" tapered ball nose works well. The 1/16" BALL CARVING BIT that drillman sells on eBay is an excellent value.
- Randall Newcomb
10 fingers in, 10 fingers out, another good day in the shop

ezurick

Re: BITS

Post by ezurick »

Randall has some great suggestions...

To add some things from my personal experience (although I am still a newbie), I have a 1/8" End Mill on hand for some finer detail roughing such as small areas and corners.

Additionally, I have a 1/4" ball nose (4 flutes for greater detail and I think a smoother cut) on hand. Sometimes the finish can be as good as using a 1/8" ball nose. Plus the carve time is shortened substantially. This doesn't work on small items, but it does on larger carves.

One thing I quickly learned is to play with the Roughing Strategy in the toolpath settings. Try different things to get better carving times. Preview the view and slow it down so you have a better idea of what you are about to encounter... if you are like me, I stand and manually remove the waste when I cut the roughing. Nothing worse than starting a rough carve and not knowing how long it will take or how many cycles/levels it will go through. For most finish carvings, I just remove the waste periodically. Good luck and have fun!

electrictermite
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Re: BITS

Post by electrictermite »

thank you all for responses. I think I should have on hand by what I am reading here. 1/8 and 1/4 end mill with 1/2 cutting length, and 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 taper ball nose. Should the end mills be upcut ?

ezurick

Re: BITS

Post by ezurick »

electrictermite wrote:thank you all for responses. I think I should have on hand by what I am reading here. 1/8 and 1/4 end mill with 1/2 cutting length, and 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 taper ball nose. Should the end mills be upcut ?

Depending on the thickness of your material, my 1/4" end mill (which is what I use more than any) is 1" cut depth. If you don't plan to cut material any thicker than .75" boards, I wouldn't worry about it. Otherwise, thicker boards may need deep cut lengths. As for the up/down cut EMs, I personally don't get myself too wrapped around that since most of my projects are pretty simple. But others may step in and suggest to carry both. I think all of my 1/4" end mills are down cut. But I use it for roughing, cut outs, etc. Hopefully I don't misguide you here. Again, I am still kinda new with CNC, but have completed quite a few 3D projects without too many issues and still have all 6 fingers left... lol. Naw, just kidding about that.

electrictermite
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Re: Bits

Post by electrictermite »

After looking at bit sellers I am thinking I should use metric size bits instead of imperial.

ezurick

Re: Bits

Post by ezurick »

electrictermite wrote:After looking at bit sellers I am thinking I should use metric size bits instead of imperial.

Curious... why? I realize many of the ebay sellers are Chinese. Which they use metric a lot. But many of the USA sellers do both. I personally like the pricing of the Chinese sellers, but I don't care for the weeks wait time to get here. So I end up trying to find USA sellers, and I prefer to stick with imperial. I also have noticed that the Chinese metric shafts diameter is sometimes different than the imperial tools shaft diameter. A few of my metric tools have their own unique collet since they don't fit properly in my imperial tool collets. But I will say that my metric tools came with my Chinese 6040 machine. So I don't have a large inventory to verify if that is normal.

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Re: Bits

Post by Adrian »

With a lot of the cheaper sellers they use measurements whichever way around they want. They sell 1/4" bits as 6mm and 1/8" bits as 3mm for example.

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