Getting started with wood router

[tyskkvinna]

Hello all,

I have been dipping my toes into working with wood on cnc.. I've been mostly working on my mill doing v-carving. With that, I've been working with around 4000pm @ 9-15ipm. Seemed to be the right balance for my tools to get the carving smooth. On my mill, 4000pm is the max speed.

I'm going to be able to start using a gantry router in the next couple of days, and I'd like some advice on where to begin with it. It can do up to 24k rpm and 200ipm.

I'm cutting mostly mdf/hdf and hardwood scraps - rock maple, oak, some mahogany. For doing engraving/ v-carving type stuff, where would be a good place to start? I assume I'll be able to cut things much faster, since I can have a much higher rpm.

I did quite a bit of digging on this subject and people seem to be using fairly low/slow speeds. But it also seemed that a lot of the machines here are homebrew and have some limits in their speeds. I'd rather start with some suggestions from you folks here than start breaking bits/ burning wood up.

I asked my reps about it and they admitted they don't sell many of the gantry's and the few they do use, have been mostly for aluminum and plastics.

[SCRAPWOTSCRAP]

A good place to start....feeds and speeds are on page 17. At least it's a starting point, excellent reference. With all machines being different you will have to tweak a little based on your machine/material.

http://www.multicamnw.com/support/ma...ting_guide.pdf

[ger21]

If you burn and break bits, you're going much too slow. For V carving, try 12000-15000 rpm and 150ipm.