I’m using a 1/4" shank 3.92° 1mm tapered ball end for my finishing passes, and I was curious what feed rates/plunge rate/stepovers everyone was using. I’m trying to speed up my carves and wanted to know where everyone saw the best results.
I’m using a 10% stepover, pass depth of 0.02", feedrate 60in/min, plunge 20in/min.
I really need to upgrade my z. Have you done any aluminum with that setup?
I’ll be following Phil’s guide above.
I’ve stayed around 75ipm or less depending on the hardness of the material. Setting up a 3d carve at 120ipm will be the fastest I’ve gone to date. The reduced carve time will be a welcome plus.
Carving in oak with a .25 or .5mm ball end taper. I haven’t pushed much past 1200 mm/min (~50 in/min), but I do carve .5 or .7mm per pass. (.02-.03"). I’ve tried 1mm per pass and it works fine, but isn’t as clean. A 1mm carve depth with .7mm per pass gives a clean finish and just quick brushing with a stiff toothbrush takes off the fuzz.
Most of my designs would fit on a silver dollar and take 3-6 minutes to carve so I haven’t worried about making it faster yet.