need grinding services for double angle cutter...

I need to have the relief and rake angles on a 90 degree double angle cutter increased for cutting into wood. The diameter of the cutter is 4" and it is 1" thick x 20 teeth. Anyone wanna give it a wack, or guide me in the right direction?

One thing, Ted, If you increase the rake angle, the cutter will no longer be 90deg. Is that critical?

Actually, if the whole tooth is reground, (reducing the OD a bit) subject to the original configuration, it should be possible.

smt

Stephen,
The 90 degree angle is crucial. Know any grinders in my area?

Ted-

Please don't take this the wrong way, my intention is not to doubt that you know what you need and why *if* you have considered the alternatives. (OK, that's sort of insulting, but bear with me)

Since I make various forms of woodworking tooling for myself, a few questions do come to mind. Why so many teeth? (Huge feedrate?) Why rework a metal cutting tool, rather than build a wood cutting tool? What are your objectives, as far as who will maintain and re-sharpen the tool, and the kind of work it will be used for. Will it be run climb cutting, or conventional?

On a solid bit like you mention, the typical objective is to have a cutter that can be maintained by sharpening the face only. To get that situation, the teeth have to be "cam" ground originally to match the hook and relief desired. Then, it has to be sharpened at the same radial angle throughout the life of the tool, to maintain the profile. If you merely add some hook to an existing 0 (neutral) hook tool, the new angle, cutting into the existing back relief, will yield a different angle than the original face angle. What I'm trying to say, is the grinder will be doing more than re-sharpening the existing tool, he will essentially be using it merely a raw material to comepletely re-design the teeth.

Charles GG Schmidt in Montvale, NJ is a very good tool and cutter parts supplier, and stock, custom, and semicustom tool builder for woodworking. If they don't have a better option for your application (costs cosidered) they are certainly capable of doing the rebuilding of your existing cutter if they are willing.

http://www.cggschmidt.com/

smt

Stephen,
I am a custom cuemaker. This tool is for cutting the v-groove that the points are set in. I am doing this on a milling machine. The piece of the cue that is being cut is the "front." The jig that holds the front is a spin indexer mounted on an aluminum plate with a tailstock, and the jig is mounted on the milling machine on a taper, so that when it cuts into the front, it starts out cutting at the surface only and as the table moves it cuts deeper and deeper towards the tailstock. I hope this is a clear enough representation of this procedure. Check it out here...www.tedharris.com/images/shop_milling_machine.gif
The reason that I do not use a router bit is I do not have a high speed spindle. I suppose I could mount a router to the spindle somehow, but this is the way I have been doing it. Another issue I have is most woodworking equipment and tooling does not have the repeatability once it is dialed in. Then you have to deal with the fact that woodworking tool makers & suppliers do not make their stuff to be used on metalworking machinery. So, I have to either buy woodworking stuff, and adapt it to metalworking machinery and still have to deal with repeatability issues...or I have to buy metalworking tools and make it work on wood. This is not as easy as it sounds.
Yet another problem that I face is with some machinist's attitude about working with wood. The most common thing I have heard is, "why do you need that, it's only wood!"
I cannot tell you how much money I have spent over the last decade trying to get things I needed and thrown good money after bad. Part of the problem is that I am completely self taught, and am only now beginning to understand the way things work, so whenever I was out there trying to get something done, I had no argument with any of the people I was dealing with because I had no basis for a discussion. I think somehow that made me a target. I mean, I would tell them what I wanted and they would do what they wanted to do, and I would not know the difference anyway...until it was too late.
Even though I have hardly scratched the tip of the iceberg, I can now at least have a conversation about the way I want things to work.

Now, for the next part...
So let me get this straight, once the tool is re-designed with the rake and relief for cutting wood, and then the diameter of the tool is reduced by making it cut a 90 degree angle again, then it will "only" need the face to be resharpened next time, correct?

Thank you for your insight and time...

Ted, I fully relate to your story. I ended up machining my own parts and soon cutters, from just the type of experiences you mention. Many metal heads tend to think woodwork is "easy" or "does not really need to be *that* precise" until they try it at a professional level to specified standards. Don't even think about AWI specs.

On the solid cutters, my comments about face sharpening were part of my musings to try to understand your objectives. In the recent "old days" (40 yrs? and back) before flat insert tooling, solid body cutters were sometimes made as I described, for long production runs. They tend to be a very expensive way to make a cutter.

Coincident, and still made, some cutter bodies employ replaceabe/re-settable lug bits, where only the bits are profile ground and set to be face sharpened. These used to be somewhat common on tenoners, and things like flooring mills where thousands of miles of moulding (T & G, e.g.) were run, but all had to match up more or less precisely. Again these tend to be quite expensive tooling solutions, but on a cost of cuts per mile, very cheap.

Getting back to your question; no, a standard grind with hook and clearance to suit, will not automatically give the benefits of a developed cam ground tooth form. But it will be a heck of a lot cheaper. Then when it is resharpened, all the surfaces will be touched up, but lightly. Probably more economical, given the volume of cutting for your application. I was just exploring the "why" question.

Have you made similar successful cuts with that cutter, or with any other tooling? What specifically was unsatisfactory?

How do you support the end of the part, where the cutter runs out, or is that proprietary info ? I'm thinking the part must be over long, profiled in to depth and length, but a little left for handwork, and then cut off later? Or do you use a full round shop made steady rest with a cutout on the cut side to let it pass?

(I'm just all full of surmisals, hunh? )

Can you make or sharpen tooling?

As a point of curiosity, do you bandsaw the mating form on the cue butt as was tradtional? or is there another way to do it these days?

smt

If you are still looking for this cutter we may be able to help you. If any cutter can be made, we can do it. Check us out at www.fivestartool.com, we are in rochester,ny.