Good day.
I did a test on a birch plywood …on the straight cut it is pretty good but when cutting diagonal…it chips allot.
I am running a whiteside 1/4 compression bit…running 5 passes for 18mm.
Anything else I need to look at? will a smaller bit be better 3/16? 1/8?
Anyone cutting these with great succes? which bit, size, feed and speeds?
Tnx!
If by “cutting diagonal” you mean “such that the bit is digging into the grain” (i.e. two of the eight sides of an octagon, not four) then either (1) you aren’t cutting deep enough for that compression bit, or (2) you need to use a left-spinning bit to cut those particular edges. Or, I suppose, (3) use a down-cutting bit for the first pass. Or, (4), if you’re going to chamfer the edges, chamfer them first.
In the (1) case, you need to cut deep enough so that the top layer of the plywood is being cut by the down-spiral part of the bit. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfBxIMkRLEc
In the (2) case, which happened to me once, note that if you have a spindle (and not a router) you can run it backwards, and use mirror-image bits that are designed to run backwards, for cases where the grain is “just wrong” for normal-spinny bits. See Whiteside Router Bits LU2100 Left Hand Spiral Bit with Up Cut Solid Carbide 1/4-Inch Cutting Diameter and 1-Inch Cutting Length - Spiral Router Bits - Amazon.com . You’d use the left-spinny bit on the problem edges and a right-spinny bit on the rest of them.
Thank you for the info good and great tips here!
update…this was easily solved…did it in 3 passes came out great!