Problem:
we need to route thru this 3/8"th material to accept 3/4"th Clear Acrylic that
will be pushed thru w/ a shoulder from behind.
Letter height between 3-7" (varies per letter). The Lamboo is just the background.
Could anyone recommend a bit to use for this. Some corner areas need to go as
small as 1/8" dia. Obviously avoiding splintering.
Would be appreciated to anyone who may have experienced this type of material
and could share some good advice. Bit size, speeds etc.
I've cut quite a lot of bamboo plywood over the years. The main go-to bit would be any compression style bit. Typically, I prefer the mortise compression bits which have a little less upshear than downshear. For 3/8" material, you may try a 1/4" compression bit (I use Vortex bits). There aren't any 1/8" diameter compression bits that I'm aware of, so if it were me I'd probably use the 1/4" compression first, the clean up corners with a 1/8" downspiral bit.
Feeds/speeds are about the same as any other hardwood plywood. I'd go with around 15,000 rpms and perhaps 3000mm/min with the 1/4" compression (this would be a full width cut), and perhaps 15,000 rpms and 2000mm/min for the 1/8" spiral (not a full width cut, but bamboo is hard and may deflect a little). That would be my starting points, but you may need to adjust a little depending on your specific machine.