[Mickster]

I'm raising the question here, in the DIY section, as I'm sure many of you have also been in the same position: Unsure of which brand/material/price-range of tooling to buy initially.

I say initially as, although I haven't had any major mis-haps to date, the time will surely come and I don't want to wreck an expensive cutter during the learning stages, where I'm still getting to grips with depths, feeds & speeds.

The main materials I will be cutting are:
MDF
PCB's
Softwoods
Hardwoods
Plastics
And maybe some aluminium from time to time.

I'm currently using a Dremel as a spindle, but have a 1/4" Bosch 500W trimmer waiting to be mounted once I can get a 1/8" collet for it.

I have had a look at a few different websites and am drawn to this site:-
http://www.sussextools.co.uk/site_map.php
for their pricing and range.

Can anyone please offer some advice on the tooling above, or suggest similarly priced alternatives?

I'm currently using Dremel router tooling and feel that this is the reason why I have to take very light cuts. Even my home-made 1/8 ex-drill bit end mills are a significant improvement...

Any advice is greatly appreciated,

Mickster.

[Oldmanandhistoy]

Hi,

First thing I noticed in the link posted is that there is no suitable tooling for timber. For cutting timber based products I only use Trend tooling (search ebay for good prices) as imo you get what you pay for. Cheaper cutters will either break easily or lose their edge very quickly. So even though the cost of Trend is higher they last longer so long term they end up as cost affective as cheap cutters. They also do ranges for plastic’s and aluminium (aluminium cutters suitable to be use in a router not milling machine).

The cutters in the link require low rpm’s and rigid machines (milling machines).

Also the 1/4" Bosch 500W trimmer I am guessing is not variable speed so would not be ideal. The high rpm’s will burn and this will course the cutter to very quickly loose its edge not to mention burn the part and can course mdf dust to ignite.

John

[martinw]

Dear Mickster,

John is absolutely right about Trend. Their range is really comprehensive, of excellent quality, but comes at eye-watering expense. The expense is probably justified though if they are used extensively.

As an alternative to Trend, CMT is an another route you might consider (Axminster Power Tools do , or did, them by mail order), but their range is much smaller.

As John said, there are loads of adverts on ebay.

The more exotic/large diameter cutters cost an absolute fortune from reputable manufacturers, but if you need to make a limited number of cuts with a cutter that will only be used infrequently, I would seriously consider a cheap no-name cutter from ebay. I bought a 32mm radius bearing-guided round-over cutter for £12 recently. A Trend one would cost about £110. OK, the ebay one probably doesn't come close in quality, but for a few tens of metres of cuts, it did the job.

Good luck,

Best wishes,

Martin

[sansbury]

Generally speaking I think you will want good carbide tooling for everything you've listed. The main difference will be tool and feed speeds and cut depth. MDF, hard, and soft woods are relatively similar except that the resin in MDF will eat HSS cutters quickly. Plastics can usually be machined with tooling designed for wood or metal with varying success.

For PCBs I've been happy with the drill bits I got from Drill Bit City and I hear Andrew of www.drewtronics.net makes excellent and relatively inexpensive carbide cutters. I bought some $5 carbide engraving bits from drillman1 on eBay and have been happy with them so far, and the endmills were also of good quality for the price.

All this stuff is relatively small and light so with the difference in the dollar you may have good luck buying from US suppliers. It wasn't until I started reading this board that I realized how spoiled we are with cheap suppliers here in the States.