The Latest in Freud Router Bits
George VondriskaDescription
Black I.C.E.
Freud’s Black I.C.E. (Industrial Cooling Element) bits on top of their TiCO Hi-Density Carbide will, according to Freud, give twice the life and performance compared to standard uncoated bits.
Heat and carbide are not friends. Freud’s I.C.E. coating helps prevent chips and resin from sticking to the router bit. The cleaner the bit stays, the easier it is for the bit to evacuate chips and shavings, and the cooler it’ll run. This is always important with router bits, but it’s especially important with the high feed rates of CNC routers.
Using I.C.E. bits
You can use I.C.E. bits on any wood product you’re using in your shop, but they’re specifically designed to optimize performance when cutting melamine, MDF, particle board and plywood.
Available alone or in sets
Freud router bits are available as stand-alone bits, so you can buy only the specific cutter you need. Or, you can purchase bits in sets. A set, like the set of commonly used CNC bits, makes a lot of sense, with everything you need under one roof.
Insert tooling
Insert tooling makes a lot of sense for CNC work. A great example is the Freud spoilboard cutter. When its carbide cutters get dull, simply rotate them to a fresh edge and you’re back in business.
Router bit technology has come a really long way and one of the things Freud has done is applied everything that they know about making great router bits to see and see specific bits and we're very lucky. We've got Greg with us to walk us through what some of those advantages are. Al, we're excited to be here. We have taken our technology from manufacturing, really, our benchmark Tycho high density carbide to a whole new level now as we are coating our bits with our black ice technology, and what that does is it creates a kind of a lubricating effect for chip evacuation. So the- So, for people who aren't familiar with CNC compared to handheld, the demands here are much higher on these cutters.
Absolutely. And that's the benefit the black, well, so one, the carbide, like you were talking about, in general, two, go into a coating so that we're clearing chips more readily than we otherwise would. The enemy of carbide is heat, so we wanna take that heat and expel that away from the carbide. So, coatings help us do that. It's kind of like a thermal barrier and, in this case, the black ice is actually almost like a lubricant that we can get the chip evacuation much, much cleaner, keep the bit running cooler, and you get much, much longer life out of the carbide by doing that.
The, and then with this set, you also get kind of our O-flute technology which is a high-polished O-flute. The beauty of that is the carbide actually is ground with a mere finish, so you get even more chip evacuation. Well, and what's great with O-flutes, one of my favorite things that a lot of people don't know, is non-ferrous metals- Yes. On a CNC and really, with non-ferrous or plexiglass, you wanna be in an O-flute, not an, a conventional- That's right. Absolutely.
Yep. Yep. So this is a, this is a great, this is a set? Yep. And it's, what, a great starter set 'cause we kind of got everything you need here, plexi and non-ferrous, wood-cutting, but then also the V-bits for sign-making.
That's right. Absolutely. And then we also have, like, our three-piece set which would be more for just doing, like, round-overs and grooming if you can see that, but that's also a great set as well because a lot of people are dedicated to one thing or another or they just wanna have some options with different radiuses and different variables that they can introduce on their product or even making doors, you know? Doing round-overs on outside profiles of doors, for instance. And the single-point round-over is such a cool thing that I think, that's another thing.
A lot of people, although they use a CNC, aren't necessarily familiar with, like, if you've used a handout, you're familiar with round-over bits with a bearing on 'em and, of course, you can't use that on a CNC. So, with that single-point, we can can get that round-over effect similar to what you would do on a router table or the handheld. Yep. Nice. Absolutely.
And then, if somebody really just wants kind of a basic carving set, we just have a three-piece, kind of a starters carving set, to do ornamental work so you don't have to necessarily step up to the eight-piece. And if that's not quite good enough, you can also just buy the bits individually. With any of these sets, you can just buy the bits individually, so really works out well. As well as, you know, you're gonna wanna flatten your top every once in a while. We gotta fly-cut that spoil board.
So you're gonna wanna use something like this on a, you know, to get it flat and even, get nice pressure all the way over on your part, so you don't have any deviation in the material that you're making. And what I love about this, I'm a huge fan of insert tooling. So here people are probably familiar with this from jointers and planers. Yep. When one edge is dull, we can rotate that 90 degrees and, of course, do that three times.
So make sure you've always got a fresh edge on that spoil board bit. That's a great addition to the router family. Yep. Yep. And you can see some of the complexity that we've taken, really, from the- There's a compression bit for ya'.
Wow! Yeah. That, yeah. When you're running at 3,200, or 32 meters per minute or higher, you're gonna wanna fly through material, but we've taken that same technology which is in the large industrial machines and, with the black ice coating, the high polish, the Tycho carbide that we manufacture ourselves, put that same technology into the, you know, the same bits that we use on the bench top machines and actually, we have a lot of large users even using the bench top machines to do intricate carvings on large machines- Yeah. 'Cause they're still making signs.
Still needs detail. Yep. You still need to put that registration code or whatever in the corner or put a name if you need to. So- Yeah. But a- So, it's cool stuff.
At the end of the day, one-stop shopping for CNC work bench top or full-size machines. Freud has done a nice job of standalone bits and then also the all-under-one-roof kits that give people what they need. Yeah, and it's been an exciting 60 years with Freud. So. Not for you.
We're lookin'. Yeah. Not for me. Not all of 'em. A good portion of them, but looking forward to the next 62.
All right. Thanks, Greg.
Where does one find feed and speed info for these bits?