machining wood :) help please

[ieezitin]

Hello guys,

I have a friend coming over my shop this week end and he wants me to mill a piece of mahogany slab 1’’ thick, he wants a small groove (90Deg end mill) x .200 deep, The radius of this will be about 8 inches. The outside diameter will be 11-1/2” ( end mill ) this will be all done on a rotary table.

My question is there any techniques involved in doing this on a conventional metal milling machine, router bits? Endmills? I have never machined wood on my machine.


Thanks   Tony.

[Arbalist]

I've cut wood on my mill. Use the sharpest slot or endmill you have and run it faster than normal.

[chipenter]

Cutting wood on a mill is easy but the feed is the key , to fast and it will be raged on the edges , to slow and it will burn , ask him to bring an offcut for a test piece .

[ieezitin]

Chipenter.....

we will have the rough edges to play with..... thanks for the tip on the feed..

Arbalist...

all i have on the mill is about 2200rpm............... hoping this will be enough..

not looking forward to the clean-up...  ;(

Anthony.

[Arbalist]

2200 should be fine, I ran a 3/4" cutter about that speed on wood. Depends a lot on what type of wood though!

[Fergus OMore]

An addition to what has been said already.

Mahogany is one of those cross grained woods. The description of mahogany isn't quite sufficient because there are literally dozens of varieties which used to be simply Honduras and African.

So you need razor sharp tooling, small depth of cut and highest speeds to get anything of a finish.

And don't end up like me. I was doing the pram front on a Mirror dinghy copy on a Myford PR11planer and ended up having more skin planed off - for the skin graft on my left hand.

Norman

[Arbalist]

I cut the joints and finger grips for my surface plate box on my mill. The grips (slots) were done with a bull nosed cutter. Wood is Poplar.

[Meldonmech]

Hi Tony
                Rig up a vacuum tube as closely as possible to the cutter, all hardwoods produce fine dust which is toxic,
                wear a mask.  The dust can also get into the moving parts of the machine.
                           
                                                     Take care   Cheers David

[Brass_Machine]

Hi Tony
                Rig up a vacuum tube as closely as possible to the cutter, all hardwoods produce fine dust which is toxic,
                wear a mask.  The dust can also get into the moving parts of the machine.
                           
                                                     Take care   Cheers David

I second that. Easy to do and makes things a lot safer/healthier and easier to clean up. I was able to mill wood just fine on my X2, so 2200 RPM should e plenty fast enough. Keep an eye on the speeds. I got some burnt wood by going to slow. As others said, try a scrap piece 1st.

Eric

[AdeV]

I've milled MDF on my Bridgeport @ 2300rpm, using a single-bladed router bit, with no problems - other than the periennial dust, which the shop vac took care of. I didn't wear a mask because I like living on the edge... (actually, because it never occurred to me).

Personally I'd recommend using router bits simply because you won't abrade your expensive HSS tooling. Plus router bits come in all fancy shapes & sizes for relatively little money.

[Brass_Machine]

...
Personally I'd recommend using router bits simply because you won't abrade your expensive HSS tooling. Plus router bits come in all fancy shapes & sizes for relatively little money.

Fairly easy to get locally (well, for us over here) at the box home improvement stores too!

[ieezitin]

Well here are the fruits on my endeavors. I took note of all that replied, and this is what i came up with.











Notes...

I was told too run my milling cutters full out, that was a disaster, i toned it down to 1500RPM with a 3/4 end mill, it shaved wood off not milled. I used a wood router profiling tool to profile the rounded edged at the same speed. The type with a ball bearing on the end, i used the edge reference for the bearing contact. The wood i was milling was Mahogany, its a hard wood, it made my cutters hot but tolerable. Dust was kicking up, i used i vacuum to get rid of all debris.

Hope you all learn..  Anthony.

[RussellT]

That looks a good finish.  I hope your friend was pleased.

Russell

[Stilldrillin]

WOW. That's beautiful! 

Well done! 

I've got several offcut pieces of mahogany, awaiting a purpose. Never thought of machining, as such....... 

David D

[ian99]

FYI, that wood is one of a large group of similar woods from South East Asia known variously as Meranti/Lauan/Philippine Mahogany.
It is not in any sense a real Mahogany which has a much nicer colour and grain.

[ieezitin]

Learn something new every day..................  Thanks..  And welcome to our Forum.

Anthony.

[Yorkshireman]

When machining wood, one should always remember, that wood dust can be very harmful to you !
Take look at http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/, before you get ill.

Take Care
Johannes