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????

X4 MU2

In programming ramp tabs, I've had an issue with a tool movement causing an extra deep cut (-.5) inches. This has happened only on occasion and only on one or two parts out of a sheet of parts. The parts were not nested (placed manually) into a sheet. All the tabs were created from the same contour toolpath with the same tab parameters..?

 

Happens only on a few tabs. In checking the verify and backplot, it doesn't show up. It doesn't show up in the Techno control software preview used. Doesn't show in the nc file (at least I cant find it). When we run the program above the stock it creates an odd arc move in the -Z direction, comes up and continues the program. It takes place just as it is ramping down at the back side of the tab.

-Anyone had this issue or have a guess? Straight plunge tabs are fine.

dont quote me on this, but you might want to check in under settings, control definition manager,linear settngs, and make sure they are all set to "DO NOT BREAK LINEAR MOTION". Ive had this issue before and its always when im tabbing and running a new version of MasterCam that I have forgotten to change in the preferences right away. just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

I dont know what you use to hold your material down, but we use vacuum here and have great suction that will hold that little centre piece down after the full cut. if you use vacuum pumps, maybe solution is more cfu? just a thought