Milling Plywood

[SpecialtyTool]

I have a pretty simple but pretty stupid question. I need to circle mill some holes in 1" plywood and Ive never milled a piece of wood let alone a piece of plywood, any tips? I don't have any special tools or any special approach. I was just gonna take a 3/4" high speed 2 flute and circle mill. My mill is limited on rpm's so Im kinda afraid its going to want to tear.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

If you have carbide cutters with edge prep for aluminum those ought to work fine. Max RPM of course, and you might use a larger cutter to keep the surface feet up. Keep the cutter moving to avoid building up heat, if it loads up it'll smoke or burn.

[MotorCityMachine]

I have a pretty simple but pretty stupid question. I need to circle mill some holes in 1" plywood and Ive never milled a piece of wood let alone a piece of plywood, any tips? I don't have any special tools or any special approach. I was just gonna take a 3/4" high speed 2 flute and circle mill. My mill is limited on rpm's so Im kinda afraid its going to want to tear.

 

Depending on your tooling available, I would use 1/2" to 3/8 dia cutter for this.The bigger the cutter , the more load the machine is withstanding.I'd use a 2 or 3 flute UPCUT. downcut if you are worried about holding the part down. 90 % of work is milling various thicknesses and grades/ speicies of plywood. no need to depth cut. Ramp in at 30 degrees or somewhere around there. RPM = 18,000 , Feed = 325 ipm , Plunge = 250 to 275 ipm. the only adantage for the 1/2" cutter would be that it wouldnt leave "meat" left in middle of the 1' circle you are attempting to cut. therefore no worries about the tiny middle piece causing an issue with getting loose and in the way. hope this helps????

[jetorbit]

1/4 compression mills were typically my weapons of choice. They run at higher feeds, provide hold down force and leave perfect top and bottom edges on laminated plywoods. Just remember to always ramp in a compression tool or down spiral to eject cuttings and extend tool life. Depending on vacuum and machine rigidly 500ipm should be achievable all day.