Those single flutes without bearings are useless for using on any exposed edges as they burn and create grooves from the friction, especially on softer timbers.
I need to respond to this, I made a total of ~40 tops, there were 6 with the slot.
No it is not visible, if I went back to this job odds are I would not be able to find the repairs after the 10 years since it was completed.Very nice job on the Dutchman Tom......is it visible at all?
How did the slot become so far removed from where the client wanted it?
Love the printed corners, did you print them yourself or are they commercially available?
In one case, the template is straight-forward to construct. In the other case, you need to accommodate the bit/bushing offset.
Maybe you're just not looking hard enough:
infinitytools.com
Totally, OT, but it looks like you ran out of gray spring clamps and had to use ONE orange. Good thing you're not OCD, and that's a ton of clamps.
I have 300+ of those spring clamps. When gluing up multiple parts you can’t run out of clamps before you run out of room/job.
Those single-flute flush-trim bits are the simplest and cheapest solid carbide bits, on the market. They are fantastic with laminate (HPL) but not so good for use on wood. The solid end drags, burns, scratches. You have to be careful, move continuously, and hopefully use some lube.
Ok, that relieves my blood pressure some. Thanks for the clarification.
We ran into the same thing. Though the OCD was strong enough to store them in separate containers. The solid surface department has hundreds of them. Red Bessey, Orange Pony, Gray some off-brand Amazon?
I would think BenchPilot with SO would simply pound these out, like I'd probably do with my CNC. Depends on how many you want to do, how accurate you need to be, etc.
With a BP, I might agree with you. My biggest concern is bending, and possibly exploding, one of the slots.
I think you mean don't cut all the way through, leaving a thin bottom wall? People do this on the CNC all the time. They also do "tabs" which are punched out and cleaned up afterwards. I've seen videos of guys doing tabs manually on the SO, but maybe there's an automatic way to do that too?
I would think it pretty easy with a CNC using Fusion 360, where you can tell it to do one or more roughing passes (depending on depth of cut), and then one or more finishing passes (and could even use a compression spiral bit for the finishing pass). Even a moderate 4x2 CNC should be able to batch 4 or more grilles at a time, a 4x4 or 4x8 CNC could really pound them out while you did something else.
When I managed a commercial millwork shop my method was to have 2 separate trimmers, one with a single flute bit for the initial rough pass and a second with a solid carbide 7 degree bevel using an offset pilot, then tune the edge with a file. I'd use a scrap piece of HPL to shield the finished vertical edge for the first pass leaving only a small amount of material for the second final pass. Working with laminate all day I learned pretty quickly that the ball bearing raceway on an end of a regular flush trim bit will inevitably get clogged with glue, stop spinning and ruin your afternoon. A 1/4" diameter bit also removes way less material so you go can through whatever you're doing a lot faster.
You hold a scrap piece of HPL vertically between the substrate and the bit as you trim. Because there's only a single flute and the diameter of the bit is small, you can fly alone with little resistance this way. They also cost very little as there isn't a bearing race at the end of it.
Yes, that was just the common wording where I worked. It works best with vacuum table applications, so you don't lose vacuum. With especially small parts, this can be an issue, especially if they are near the edges. Grouping smaller pieces near the middle, larger parts around the edges, seems to help. The auto-nesting programs don't really take that into consideration though. They generally focus on minimizing material use and leaving the biggest piece of scrap.
