When we DIY something, we use wood milling cutters(router bits) to mill or shape our wooden board, which can make our workpiece looks better. For old hands, choosing an appropriate tool for their workpiece is not a hard thing. Things about woodworking tools have been engraved on their memories. But for beginners, it is not an easy thing to choose the right router bit. So we collected 6 tips for beginners about how to choose the right wood milling cutters for their work pieces.

1. Determine main technical parameters

We may call all kinds of tree timbers after they are been cut into pieces, but it doesn’t mean there are no differences in wood materials. Some wood boards are harder when some are softer, and some wooden boards are mixed with too much glue which may easily make your tools get black or go wrong. So, to deal with wood with different properties, we have to choose specific tools. To choose the right wood milling cutter for your tool, you need to know some basic parameters first. There are main parameters such as cutter diameter, cutting thickness, and diameter of the central aperture. Also, there are other parameters like teeth number, rotation direction, rotation velocity, feeding velocity, clamping method, and material of blade teeth. Know these parameters of bits, and you can know how to choose a suitable tool for your routers and workpieces.

2. Structure of router bit

Totally speaking, we have mainly four types of wood milling cutters structure. They are solid wood milling cutters, welded solid wood milling cutters, assembly wood milling cutters, and interlocked wood milling cutters. The structure of your bits is connected to the property of cutting objects. So, select the right structure for your bits according to the nature and requirements of cutting objects. Considering both technical and economic aspects, then you could decide to choose solid wood milling cutters, welded solid wood milling cutters, assembly wood milling cutters, or interlocked wood milling cutters.

3. Influence of rotation direction

Rotation direction is based on machine spindle rotation direction and determined by the relative position of cutter shaft and workpiece. No matter whether it is a solid bit, or an assembly bit, the dip angle between the cutting edge and radius of wood milling cutters determine rotation direction.

4. Cutting parameters

Cutting parameters include the cutting speed of your cutter, feed velocity, and depth of cutting. Cutting speed depends on the milling speed and radius of your bits. Feed velocity depends on the quality of the cutting surface. The surface roughness of your workpiece is largely determined by the milling process of each tooth feed. If feed volume is too large, the processing surface is too rough, or per tooth feed is too small, there will be burning marks on the processing surfaces of your workpiece, so feed volume per tooth of your bit must be appropriate for actual processing situation.

5. Operation stability

The stability of milling cutter operation is the basis of machining precision and surface quality. Stability is mainly influenced by two aspects: one is vibration which is caused during the cutting process due to external force. Second, deformation of the milling cutter occurs under the influence of external forces.

6. Operation Safety

Safety of milling includes rotation velocity limitation, chip thickness limitation, height limitation of shaper cutters’ profile, thickness limit of assembly wood milling cutters, and length of extended parts of blades.
High-speed cutting is one of the biggest characteristics of wood milling cutters. The general rotation velocity of bits is more than 3000rpm. High-speed cutting brings high production efficiency and smooth surface quality for wood cutting. However, at the same time, high-speed cutting also brought a series of safety problems. So when the speed of the milling machine spindle reaches 9000rpm, assembly wood milling cutters should be prohibited except shank milling cutter which is shorter than 16mm. Even for welding seam of the whole milling cutter also need to carry out strict flaw detection inspection. Chip thickness limitation is a necessary measure to prevent milling cutters from overloading due to excessive feed.

You may still think choosing the right router bit for yourself is not an easy thing, but at least now we know what we should learn before purchasing ourselves wood milling cutters. Besides the tips above, there are also other things you need to concern about. For example, the materials of your bits. We usually use carbide-tipped wood milling cutters for routing wooden boards, but there are also other materials such as high-speed steel situations. So the actual situation should still be decided by the materials of your workpieces.

Finally, if you have any demands for wood milling cutters, you may be interested in our products. We have all kinds of wood milling cutters(carbide-tipped wood milling cutters, solid carbide wood milling cutters, compression wood milling cutters, etc.) for hand routers, table routers,s, and even for CNC machines. Except for bits we listed, we can also do customization. Tell us your demands or send us an e-mail, and we can customize one for you.