I am about to try a compression bit but there is one thing that has me stumped … how do you enter the work piece? Put in another way, when you enter the work piece, either via ramp or plunge cut, there is a small section where the upcut portion of the bit does the cutting. How do you prevent a rough edge at the insertion point?
I can only see using ‘lead in’ but you can’t do that for slots.
So, is there a trick that is used for the start of a cut?
The first pass on a compression bit needs to be slightly deeper than the upcut portion of the bit. In most cases, this means setting the first pass to .26”, but some compression bits have shallower upcut lengths, e.g. mortise compression bits. I use a ramp that equals roughly twice the pass depth, or .5 for a ¼” compression bit.
If you’re using a Pocket toolpath in Vectric software, you can add the ramp with no lead in and it will stay within the vector boundaries as it ramps in. Set it to Raster parallel to the slot walls with the Profile Pass set to Last. That keeps the plunge in the center of the slot rather than plunging along the edge.
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