Cutting wood/foam

[davidperry3]

Is the 5000 rpm spindel on my 1100 fast enough to use on wood and or foam?
Is attaching a faster device really the only way to go.
I thought I might try to make some fiberglas tooling molds.

[MichaelHenry]

I've cut maple with standard HSS MW cutters and been fairly successful. There was a little tear out on some of the pieces, but that wasn't important to my application.

Tormach sells a Kress router as an auxiliary spindle, so you may want to check that out.

[SquibLoad]

I use my 1100 almost exclusively for wood with great success. I make guitar parts, such as 3d profiled bridges, fretboards, braces, violin fingerboards, etc. I've used a full range of bit sizes, from tiny 0.023" fret slot cutters to full size face mills for surfacing and chamfer bits. All have done just fine. The key is to experiment to get the right feed rate. Too slow makes 'wood dust' and too fast can overcome the clamping (I use vacuum clamping most of the time) with a hardwood like Rosewood or Ipe.

I did do several modifications to my 1100 to make it more wood friendly, though.

I made a rear shield for the table enclosure to keep most of the dust contained in the table enclosure that is held on by magnets making it easily removable for cleanup.

I plumbed a vacuum line to my table for clamping that is foot switch controlled for quick part changeout.

I also hooked up an air solenoid to my compressor line and ran air to the spindle to keep chips clear. It's controlled by the normal 'M08/M09 coolant' codes.

I hooked up a linear slide with a Nema23 motor to the 'A' axis input to use as an extended 'X' axis for pieces longer than 18 inches. I set up Mach to change 'A' moves from rotary to linear. This way I can get 'X' travel as long as I want, with the approriate length slide.

I hooked up a vacuum to the spindle, also controlled by the 'M08/M09' codes. It goes on along with the air for chip clearance.

Probably a few other things as well, and if I remember them I'll post them here. If you have any questions about using the 1100 with wood, I'll try to answer them if I happen to know the answer.

[davidperry3]

Thanks for the info.