I will have the DW660, spinning somewhere in the region of 10,000-20,000RPM (will need to experiment).
I will be cutting 1/8" thick ABS/Polycarbonate. I will also be cutting acrylic, though that is a much more brittle and hard plastic.
I will have a 1/8" collet, which I think means I can use 1/8" endmills. Can I use endmills any smaller than this? Or would that require a smaller collet? I was hoping to get a bit as small as 1/16"
I also wanted a V carving endmill (not just a standard V carving bit, but an endmill where the entire bit is a long cone).
Where can I find the bits Im looking for, and is 1/16" possible?
The DW660 sp8ns at 24k[quote=“PrismFox, post:1, topic:22376”]
I will have a 1/8" collet, which I think means I can use 1/8" endmills. Can I use endmills any smaller than this? Or would that require a smaller collet? I was hoping to get a bit as small as 1/16"
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You can likely find stepped endmills with a 1/8" end that fits your collet and a reduced size cutting tip. If Ryan doesn’t have something like that in the shop you can try Ebay or Banggood.
A 1/8" collet will handle any endmill with a 1/8" shank. The cutting portion of the end mill can be smaller or larger than the shank size. Ryan sells a two flute 1/16" endmill with a 1/8" shank in his store. I’ve purchased both 1.5mm and 1.0mm (both smaller than 1/16") end mills with 1/8" shank from Amazon. I even have a 0.8mm bit that came as part of a set. Note there are specialty end mills for cutting plastic that has different geometry, but they tend to be pricy. I did a quick search for end mills for cutting plastic and one of the first hits I found this site. Their smallest bit is 1/32, and most of their bits have a 1/8" shank.
Length of cut is L2 on the diagram and represents the measurement of the cutting flutes on the end mill. For example, if you were doing a contour cut and exceed this depth, the shank will start to rub against the walls of your cut.
Yes Length of cut is the maximum DOC. Sometimes you can play games to go deeper. For example, if I shank diameter and the cutting diameter are the same, I can go below the cutters and allow the shank to rub a bit. I add an additional roughing pass to the cut in the few occasions I’ve done this. Note the page I referenced with the plastic cutters is the second page that came up when I googled for them. I know nothing about this company or its products, and there are other plastic specific cutter. In addition. you may get acceptable results from a standard cutter. I’d start with a set of the cheap cutters to learn from and then move to more expensive ones. Something like this where the cost of a broken cutter is $3 rather than $45+. I just wanted you to know that if you cannot get acceptable results from common end mills, there are plastic specific ones that might help.
In terms of best choice, I only know what I’ve read. I see 1 or 2 flute end mills recommended for milling plastic. Single flute end mills seemed rare when shopping cheap/generic. My limited plastics cutting experience has been extruded acrylic cut with a 1/8" 2 flute end mill. Generally for milling, cast acrylic is recommended due to its higher melting temperature. My cut edges were less than perfect, and I did not run any additional tests to see if I could dial things in. My edges did not matter since I was mounting the plastic in a “frame.”