2023 Product Showcase: Bits and Bits

Paul. We got another showcase to do you. Excited George. I'm so fired up. I love tools. I love seeing the innovation that is happening in the industry and it's fun to get together and talk about well being in the position we're in where we get to talk about it amongst ourselves. But then also share that with people. You ready to look at one. Let's do it. Here we go. Well, this is a, this is a fun set up for me, George because I've been a fan of these spiral router bits for a long time. You turned me on to them maybe 12, 15 years ago, a long time ago. I love the precision and the durability. These things hold their edge so well. I love the and I use both the up cut and the down cut. And the way that I keep that straight in my mind is up cut for getting wood up and out, evacuating wood down cut is for keeping wood down, keeping it from chipping out as you're doing fine precision work. I use the up cut a lot more because I use it for plowing things out datas and mortis. But those, the down cut are really handy to have as well. And the other one we have in the mix here are the compression bits which then give you really the best of both worlds. The bottom end of the bit, if you're in a vertical position is an up cut and then the rest of the bit is a down cut. So you're getting the perfect marriage and especially if you're doing a through cut on sheet goods where you have veneer on two faces, that compression bit is so good at protecting both faces from having blowout. And I'm a big C N C guy. You are not. Um but uh one of the things that's so important to understand is that these are not exclusively C N C good point. They seem to have been kind of pigeonholed from a perception stand point. And I think there's just so much applicability in handheld routing table. Routing. A good cut is a good cut and the, the features and benefits you get from using a good quality bit in AC N C are the same features you want in a handheld router or a router table. So, um in the video, we did everything handheld and let's have a look at that to see the joinery that was done there, talk about making sure that you pick the right bits for what you're doing. I've got three different cutters from bits and bits here and at the end of the day, we're going to use them to make grooves basically, except it's a groove or a data or a mortis. So let's talk about the cutters and then we're going to look at their applications to make sure you're using the right one on the right spot. So the quarter inch bit here on the end is an up cut spiral. When you look at the flutes on an up cut, they look like the flutes on a drill bit. That's how you're going to know that it's an up cut. What will happen when we use this cutter is it evacuates chips out of the cut. So that's a great choice for something like a mortis because what that's gonna do is it's going to help get the waste out of those deep, deep cuts as you're cutting much the same way a drill bit does out of a hole. The half inch bit here is a down cut. So when you look at this, of course, a router bit always turns in the same direction, but the flutes are helical, is that a word differently than the way they are on the up cut bit. So with this cutter, what that's going to do is create down pressure as you're cutting. So in something that's got a fragile veneer to it, a down cut bit is a really, really good choice because it helps reduce or eliminate chipping from that fragile veneer. The one on the end here gives you the best of both worlds. We've got a little bit of an up cut going here. We've got a little bit of a down cut going here. This is a compression cutter. So with a bit like this, we've got a couple of things going on, it will help evacuate dust out of the cut. If we're going all the way through a board and you could imagine a through cut on AC and C for that, we can get the up cut on the bottom, the exit side, the down cut on the top. So we're doing a really good job of preserving cut quality on both faces. Now, it's important to understand with these that it doesn't pertain only to CNC S whether this is hand out router table or CNC. The rules of the road that we're talking about here, apply to all three. Let's have a look at some cutting applications and where we would choose to use each of these specific bits. This is a beautiful piece of Birds Eye maple veneer and Birds Eye Maple is very prone to chipping. So for a cut like this, especially in a veneered material, I'm choosing a down cut spiral bit. And as I said earlier that down cut spiral is going to help put a little bit of down pressure on the cut. It's going to press the fibers down into this mortis as I'm cutting it. And that is what's going to give me really good cut quality on that top corner. It's amazing how clean this veneer comes out. So for a fragile veneer down cut, spiral is a great choice in a material like this red oak veneered plywood. I'm choosing a compression bit for this. Now again, what it's giving me is a little bit of up cut that's going to help evacuate dust out of the board. It's also given me a down cut on the surface. Red oak veneer is another relatively fragile veneer, especially on a cross cut like I'm doing here. So it's going to give me really good cut quality across that face. The compression bit also shines in an application where you're cutting all the way through a board that's veneered both faces, giving you an up cut on the back of the board, a down cut on the front of the board. So we really get the best of both worlds. The other thing that's really important to keep in mind with our cutters is choosing the right R PM. So 16 to 18,000 R PM and again, handheld router table or CNC those rules of the road apply. So make sure you're using the right R PM for your cutter on a mortis like this cut. This is a blind cut, meaning that both ends are closed as a result, it's difficult for the chips to evacuate out of a mortis that makes this a really good choice for an up cut spiral bit again, just like a drill bit that up cut spiral is helping chips and dust evacuate, lift out of the mortis. So they don't jam in there. It's bringing chips out of the cut, which means it's also bringing heat out of the cut. So it's really important to remember that R PM setting, we want chips, not dust so that it's evacuating and the chips are helping carry heat away. Increasing the longevity here. Bits. You can see how important it is to pick the right speed and the right bit for what you're doing. So we talked about up cut down, cut compression bits and when you pick the right cutter, you get really good cut quality. And again, it doesn't matter if it's handheld C N C router table, all the same information applies great cut quality. And I am going to show an example of that. I have got a beautiful peach Birds Eye Maple veneer on this walnut board. And um this is a great application for a down cut spiral because what we're trying to do is protect that veneer from chipping out. So let's see what we get here. I always let that come to a stop on the work so it's safe and she man, you know, it's like a knife, sharp corner, not nice, sharp knife, sharp corner on that veneer walnut junction there. And it's Birds Eye Maple which like let's let's pick a wood that's more prone to chipping than Birds Eye maple. There aren't many. You have to love that. There's just no getting around it. That's, uh, it's, it's all about choosing the right color for what you're doing and having good quality bits that are gonna work for you. And then the other thing that's so important we were chatting about it is, uh, when you were driving here you obeyed the speed limit. right? I did. And uh that's important with the router, but it's not here. It is safety and quality. Uh those, the speed is really important and it's, I think C and C users are like looking at this all the time, meaning the R PM and the cutter. But for people who are using the hand out and router table, you got to pay attention to that same thing, the R PM and the bit in order to make sure you're optimizing the cut quality of the tool that you're using. That's true. Another showcase in the Can Paul. Did you have fun? I had fun. I've got a lot of good ideas to take back to my shop. Cool. And that's part of this is getting those ideas out in front of people so that they can maybe take them back to their shop too, take them back to the shop and go shopping because you can never have enough tools. Thanks so much for watching.