Lathe cuttingspeed chartPDF

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The factors you need to address are feed speed (x and y movement speed) and the depth of cut. Start off using Easel’s suggested feed speeds. For depth of cut, the maximum is usually considered 50% of the bit’s diameter. So a 1/8" bit should cut no deeper than 1/16". But this is the maximum cut. Start with less. With a 1/8" bit maybe .005 or .004.

Spindle speedformula

My initial test run was a basic letter cut using the 1/8" bit cutting pine. The spindle was set at 6 which is what it was set at out of the box.

Cuttingspeed chart

Read on one of the FB groups that it should probably only be set on “1” only. That didn’t seem like a good setting for everything. I would guess that for different materials and bit selection it would have to be different.

Using routers for spindles does have some downsides and one is the shaft speed. For 99% of your projects, you will want to use the slowest RPM possible - and actually, that is faster than it should be.

The key is to just experiment. Being able to increase the feed speed during the cut is a big help. Start slow and bump it up as the cut continues, watching the result. If it starts to chatter of yields a poor cut, just slow it down some to find the ideal speed.