Hey everyone! I wanted to share the feed and speed settings that have been working really well for me when cutting hardwood (oak and maple) on my LongMill MK2.
For a 1/4" upcut spiral bit:
Feed rate: 1200 mm/min
Plunge rate: 400 mm/min
Depth of cut: 3mm per pass
Spindle speed: 18,000 RPM
I’ve been getting clean cuts with minimal tear-out using these numbers. I run the router at about speed 3 on the Makita dial which puts it right around that 18k RPM range.
What settings are you all using for hardwood? Would love to hear if anyone has dialed in something even better, especially for maple which can be tricky.
The 6mm35 upcut does a tit over 3 with me too.. actually the cut direction doesnt matter mucht to me. Upcut downcut and throwaroundcut - 3. Feeds are what the database gives, mostly sienci database because .. fanboi.. can’t help it.
Aaaaand I dial in on looks, smells, chips and smoke during the cuts. I like to use padouk, and that wood has a mind of its own. So the database settings are just a baseline. The one thing I like to change before hand is the plunge rate. I change it to the normal speed settings because padouk burns easy and those slow motion plunges are bad smoke when wood has mind.
Oh and I like to use spiral plunge moves for cutouts with cutting speeds. It keeps retraction, deflection and plunge marks out of the final shape, it just slooowly plunges all the way from top to bottom, spiralling around the project. I hate sanding.
I have not many friends, but spiral plunge is most defenitly one.
And mister roundoverbit, but that is other story for bedtime.