Hey Everyone,

I bought some 3/8in x 3in HSS blocks to grind up for cutting wood baseball bats.

I would like to know if anyone can show me some examples (drawings/the tool it self) of the best angle to use to cut my wood. I just can't find the smoothest cut.

My Chuck is on the the Left side and will be cutting left to right only.


Thank you,
Minna:)

I've never seen one, but you might want to look at the cutter of a lathe duplicator. It does basically what you're trying to do.

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=4494&mode=details#tabs

Getting a smooth cut on wood is tuff. I used a v shaped bit to cut down a 8" cylinder of oak. Small cuts @ medium feed rate. The real trick was to sand the cylinder in both forward and reverse. The finish looked like it had a coat of wax on it before I ever applied anything.

I have the VEGA Lathe Duplicators pro, it works ok. You do need to use a Diamond V cutter to get a smooth cut. you will still have to sand.
FYI i have two wood lathes one 36" and one 144" bed. im new to the CNC thing and plan to change over both my lathes to cnc.

I worked with copy lathes and wood tools for about 11 years at a previous job, I could get photos of the lathes and specific tooling we used if you still need some, some passes we were removing over an inch off the diameter each pass,

Shannon

Here are 2 examples, try them and make sure that the cutter has a small radius on the tip approx 1/32" to 1/16". I assume you are cutting ASH wood but these tools should work on most all hard woods.

Thanks for your replies,

Can anyone help me out with Cutting Suface Speed? and how I would program that in to my program...

I am new to this and from what I understand is that CSS differs the spindle speed according to diameter of the wood.

So if I am turning a maple wood baseball bat, the begins at 2.75 inches in diameter and the smallest Diameter is 1inch. How would I write this in my G coding in the beginning.