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CNC Cutters advice please|Forum|WOOD DESIGNER

October 4, 2012

Hi Elliot,
I’d be interested to hear what cutters you’re using and the optimal rotation and feed rate you found for different materials.
cheers,
Ness

October 4, 2012

Hi Elliot,
If your cutters are burning your either your RPM is too fast or the feed rate is too slow.
You should be able to cut 18mm MDF in 1 or 2 passes plus onion skin.
Aim at getting chips and not dust.
You can get approximate RPM and feed rates either from the cutter supplier or using a chip calculator.
But you’ll probably have to make some test runs to optimise.
Here’s a link to and article that might interest you:
(EDIT: link no longer live)
I’ve attached the Excel sheet chip calculator.
another chip load calculator here:
(EDIT: link no longer live)
MDF is quite and abrasive material so you will have to test various cutter types and set ups to get best results.
Here’s a woodweb forum discussion on this problem:
https://www.woodweb.com/knowle…..a_CNC.html
Hope this is helpful.
All the best,
Ness

Hi, we have recently got into the world of CNC machines and would like some advice on what cutters to use. We have got a basic model which has one head so we will be mainly using 2 cutters a 5mm to drill holes and a 12mm to groove, pocket and outline our work (we are furniture makers). We are slowly getting to grips with polyboard and the machine but would like to know which cutters are best to cut MFC and MDF. We have gone through a couple of 12mm cutters which are around the £100 mark so not cheap rubbish.. is this normal? We arent running the machine fast but the cutters have burnt ends? Also we were looking at the cutters and really we are only using the first 5mm or so of the cutters and on a sheet of 18mm we would run the cut out in 3 passes – is this correct?
Thanks for any advice
Elliot
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