Machining Wood?

[jtrout13]

I am thinking of machining up some wooden bases to hold some coins, etc. I was going to do it on a standard mill (BP Series 2), with HSS cutters. Is there anything wrong with machining wood in this way, or should I try a different method?

 

[maverick]

It's no problem machining wood with your mill. Fresh sharp cutters are a must as well as
a bit of planning to prevent chipout on the corners. The wood should have a fine tight grain like
maple or cherry. The "sawdust" makes quite a mess when mixed with way oil and should be cleaned up
asap. Good luck on your project.

Regards,
Mike

 

[Paulsv]

Milling in wood is generally done with a router at high speed (10,000 to 30,000 rpm), using router bits, which have considerably more rake and relief than metal cutting bits. The wood fibers are sheared, rather than being displaced as when cutting metal. I suspect that the closer you get to those conditions, the better your finish will be. Slow speeds and insufficient rake and relief generally lead to burn marks on a wood workpiece. If you are pocketing the wood, you might try a spiral up-cut router bit in your mill at the highest speed you can manage.

 

[Herbiev]

I would stick to woodwork machines for woodwork and metalwork machines for metal. To get a satisfactory finish on wood you need to increase your speed tenfold and then regrind your cutters for machining wood. Your best option would be to make a jig to hold a router so it can be lowered like a drill press arrangement :-\

 

[GWRdriver]

Everyone above has covered the bases pretty well . . . you decide for yourself what to do, HOWEVER . . . I notice you are in NC and if you use an Appalachian hardwood, especially any of the oaks, be sure to clean the chips off all bare metal surfaces as soon as possible, and under no circumstances allow them to sit overnight. The acid and tanin in the wood, even dried wood, will leave dark stains on bare metal, espcially cast iron.

 

[jtrout13]

I am not doing any serious machining on this wood, I'd mainly just like to cut some squares out of a block, then mill them to size and use a ball-end mill around the edges. I'll give it a go on some 2x4 before I waste any nice hardwood, and then see what happens. Thanks for the info!

 

[mklotz]

Two suggestions that have helped me...

Use router bits in place of endmills wherever possible. You'll be running at too low a speed but at least router bits have the correct edge configuration.

Look for a product called a "Safe-T plane" (sp?). It's meant specifically for power planing wood in a drill press or similar. I got mine ages ago so I don't know if they are still manufactured.

 

[n4zou]

I use my mill and lathe to "machine" wood. If you do try it I have one suggestion. Make a shield for the cutter with a vacuum cleaner hose connection so you can suck up the sawdust as you work it. I work with Bamboo a lot on my lathe. The dust and chips produced from cutting and boring it is even worse than wood. Here is an example of a speciality of mine. Very bright LED lights with special optics that fit inside the Bamboo.

I collect the Bamboo from several places for free. I dry it in the Sun for a couple of weeks and then I'll cut it in sections and sort it according to size and internal "roundness". I'll get an order for lights with the desired optics and LED's. I'll then select the proper size Bamboo and bore it out leaving a shoulder for the front glass cover. Then I'll mill a flat on the side and epoxy a steel angle or flat according to the order. Then I put a coat of polyurethane that will seal it and prevent the Bamboo from splitting. After the first coat of polyurethane dries I'll wrap twine around the Bamboo over the steel mount and coat it with another layer of polyurethane thoroughly soaking the twine. This hides the epoxy used to hold the steel mount in place and it looks good. After 24 hours the light is assembled and ready to go.

 

[f350ca]

I've had good results cutting long precise tenons in carved furniture legs using the mill. As said use a router bit, preferably hss, they have a sharper cutting edge than carbide. Run them as fast as the mill will go, think my Bridgeport clone will run around 5000 rpm, and keep the feed rate low. The shavings shouldn't be a major issue, you need water to get the wood iron reaction going. The wood shop tools are always covered in shavings with no problems, but let the iron clamp contact a wet water based glue joint and you instantly have a purple stain in your oak board.

Greg

 

[Stan]

I made all the cabinet doors for a house on my mill. Since this was a bigger job than you are contemplating, I made some mods before I started. I put on a bigger motor with a much bigger pulley to get the speed up to about 8k. Since then I have done small jobs just running at the max speed with the regular pulley.

Clamping the work down and cranking the table is not the way to go with wood. Make a wooden table with a guide on the back so that you can push the wood past the cutter like on a wood shaper. Use router bits made for wood and have at it.

The big advantage of a mill over a shaper is that on a shaper you just take one pass. On a mill it is easy to take a roughing cut and move the Y a few thou and take a finish cut.

 

[jtrout13]

Beautiful work n4zou, that's really cool stuff!

 

[mklotz]

Found it!

Here's the Wagner Safe-T Planer I mentioned in my post above.

http://www.stewmac.com/shopby/item/...&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=2011-07-gp"

I can recommend this product highly. (Standard disclaimer) When I only had a Unimat, I made a milling attachment for it from walnut using this tool to form the pieces. The tool worked beautifully (and so did the milling attachment). Think of it as a fly-cutter for wood with HSS inserts.

 

[Blogwitch]

I actually hate working with the brown stuff, but when push comes to shove, I just attack it as though it is a piece of aluminium, using my regular tools.

Razor sharp tools and fairly high speeds (1200 to 1600rpm) are the order of the day. I find I can work to near enough perfect size. No chipping at all, no matter what wood it is.

This is from a folding guitar that I designed and made earlier this year.

I even got the honour to make the base for Stews new over crank engine, because of him being allergic to certain wood dusts.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=14847.0

Again, no problems at all. A standard flycutter, ball cutter and endmill were used, all hss, but again, razor sharp. This was red oak, normally, so I am told, very bad to machine.
My tooling didn't seem to think so. A light sanding and a coat of cellulose sanding sealer was all that was required to finish it off to a nice satin sheen.

So personally, I would suggest you have a go with what you have first, if it works, great, if it doesn't, try a few other methods that have been suggested.


John

 

[n4zou]

Grizzly sells a wood and metal mill.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/Wood-Mill-Wood-Metalworking-w-Power-Feed/G9977

 

[Stan]

Be careful of a mill made in China called a wood mill. They might mean that the mill is made out of wood ;D

 

[Mike N]

I use my Bridgeport mill on wood a lot, just use a sharp 2 flute end mill & climb cut. It works great to make small intricate wood parts. Its the most precise woodworking machine ever!

 

[Ned Ludd]

Hi Guys,
Milling wood is easy, just use your normal HSS end mills /slot drills. There is much less chance of burning the wood on the mill, compared to using a router,as the speeds are more sympathetic. Mills are also much quieter than a router and the X,Y and Z control makes accurate sizing a doddle. Seeing what you are doing also helps, something you can't do with a router.
I made some boxes on the mill a few years ago out of "American" Hard Maple, lovely stuff to mill.
Ned

 

[GeorgeGreek]

Hi trout,

you have had so many answers from people obviously knowing about such things.

When I was working on some wooden parts many years ago without the Web and all these kind ready to help people, I worked the wood in the usual like metal way taking good care of the hardness and grain.


George

 

[jtrout13]

Thanks for the help guys. I milled some 2x4 today and it turned out well as a practice run. Low feed and 2-flute endmills seemed to do the trick.

For what its worth, the Machinery's handbook lists p-v values for wooden bearings, so I might have to give this a try in an upcoming project!

 

[user 284]

I'll totally agree with Marv's post about that Wagner Saf-T-Planner. They were originally designed for use on drill presses. As already mentioned, Watch your direction of cut to avoid chip out. Backing up the wood with scrap helps with this a lot. The 3 cutting tips can be easily resharpened by the end user but watch your top end RPM as you can overheat the HSS cutting tips if you go too high. I originally had a Chinese knock off and I ordered a new one directly from Wagner. Turns out I was talking to the guys wife who had invented this type of planner. She ended up giving me a bit of history about the design and the difference's between the Chinese knock offs and theirs. (She was 100% right). Really nice people to do business with. After using them I'd have to say that I'd be lost without mine. If more woodworkers knew about how accurate and easy it is to shape wood with a mill then far more of them would own one. With some experience you can also do other more complex joints. For smaller wood projects there's really no need to buy a proper woodworking planner with one of these rotary planners. If your mill is large enough, Then it would be very worth while to build a simple bolt together mount to fixture a router to the tables Z dovetail and run the usual router bits at the high RPMs needed. I'll also agree with the need for some simple guards to keep the shavings and dust under control along with that shop vac too. Add on a couple of good quality wood saw blades with a shop made spindle mount for the mills spindle and there's not a whole lot you can't do on a mill if your projects fit within the table travels. That rotary planner is of course much slower than a normal benchtop planner.

I've seen a huge number of set ups using complicated jigs and fixtures in various woodworking magazines and on TV shows that would have been much more precise and much easier to do with a milling machine. For the most part .001 certainly isn't required while woodworking, But it's nice to have the capability to do so. If money and room wasn't an issue I'd have a fully equipted woodworking shop, But I'd also have a large metalworking mill in that shop too.

Pete