Hello I have an Ooznest, 1.5m x 1.5m bed and its a brilliant machine which I use in my business for cutting all sorts of stuff, but we need to get the bed level, as we have used 15mm MDF as spoil board, and we have a Chinese spindle with a 6mm collet, but cant find a good flycutter to get it absolutely flat which we need to do to do some rebating. Could anyone recommend a flycutter that would do the job, as we have been trying allsorts of wide router bits but don't know which flycutter would be best. thank you Alan
You mention that you have been trying different cutters. What were they? What were the results? I use a 7/8" planing or "cleaning" router end mill.
Just the wide wood cutting bits that you can get for a normal router, i think the widest was 12mm, it did take a couple of mm off the bed, but i do get a bit of flex on the gantry with it being a 1500mm x 1500mm, i just need something with a 6mm shank that would do the job if anyone has a link tia Alan
Flexing isn't a problem with the end mill. It's your machine. You have to work around that by making lighter cuts. How much material are you trying to remove in one pass? 1/4" Round Shank 7/8" Cutting Diameter Cleaning Bottom Router Bit N4N5 191466622070 | eBay
I use a 1" "surfacing" bit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071748JQN/ It's not cheap at ~33 USD, but it's a great bit. The only real issue I had was router "lines" on the board, which turned out to be the result of a very slight angle between my Z axis and the table. Basically, the Z - and therefore the bottom of the bit - were at a very slight angle relative to the X axis (on my machine, X is the thing that the router carriage rides on). It took some thinking to work that out.
And that's the first time I've encountered the phrase "tramming the spindle." Thanks - the Tubes provided helpful explanations. And it looks like Joe and I posted the same product link.
In short tramming the spindle is adjusting the spindle so that it is square to the table at all sides. What I like to is take a 1/4" steel dowel that is about 3" long, put it in the spindle. Then using a square sitting on the work surface check gap of the square to the dowel. Do all 4 side of the circle, lol, if you know what I mean, and see what the results are.
