With modern machine tool technologies and CAM software, we have opportunities for continuous improvements, but this will only be restricted by the cutting tool manufactured and used. At Quickgrind, we say ‘why restrict yourself when we can make virtually any cutting you need’ to optimise your tool paths and cutting strategies.

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Using a small step-over strategy of 0.2mm, the ball nose tool compared poorly with the conical barrel tool, which had a 3mm step over. The result was a tool path travel distance of 100m for the ball nose tool compared to 7m with the barrel tool. The machining time with the ball nose tool was 39 minutes whereas the conical barrel tool completed the task in just three minutes.

I can't prove this, but intuition tells me that a saw cut that binds/jumps is worse with lots of blade out, versus "the right amount of blade".

So, the considerations for barrel tools are no different in reality to any other tool in terms of dimensions. Firstly, you need to select a tool of an adequate diameter to give good strength when machining with as short an overall length and flute length as possible to generate the most secure outcome. With a barrel tool, engineers have to consider the tilt angle required and which flute radius is the most practical to achieve the desired finish and step-down rate.

There has been a great push to reduce cycle times for roughing out parts. Everyone from machine tool builders tool holder manufacturers workholding suppliers lubrication providers CAD/CAM software companies (e.g. OPEN MIND Technologies with Hypermill®, NX CAM® from Siemens, SolidWorks® by Solidcam, Fusion 360® & PowerMill® from Autodesk and Tebis) and of course the cutting tool manufacturers have all been involved.

At the end of the day a saw blade is just a disk of many chisels. If you were trying to reduce blow out when cutting through a piece of wood with a blunt chisel, how would you hold it? Now think of what the saw blade is doing.

Sure, obviously you need to make sure you cut through the whole thing you’re cutting. But short of protecting your workbench, why not just sink the blade as deep as possible as a default and only lift it up when there is an actual underlying surface.

Set the blade to depth. Don't put your fingers close to the blade. Using two hands is probably advisable especially if you are not familiar with the tool. Hold onto the saw tightly and do not let go if it kicks back. Let go of the trigger but don't let go of the handle. You really don't want a saw jumping out of the cut and dancing around by your feet. Also, use a square and mark a line. The skill saw wants to go straight. If you try to twist it in the cut that's when the blade will grab the sides of the cut and try to throw the saw backward. Make a line to follow even if you don't have an exact measurement. Following a line is also good practice.

Having the blade further away so it is barely coming out of the wood as it is cutting means it is more perpendicular when exiting the bottom face, in effect making a smaller cut.

Cutting tool experts like Quickgrind are often asked where barrel tools be applied? There is no straight forward answer. Rather than thinking about what components can be machined, it is better to think about the types of components you generally machine and which features within those parts have substantial cycle times that you would like to reduce.

This video has some tricks for experienced users. He likes a worm drive saw. I prefer the sidewinder type. Also, user preference but worm drive saws tend to be easier to use in some ways because the motor is mounted front to back so it's not fighting you from keeping the saw straight. With a sidewinder type you have to constantly adjust to keep the saw straight. The downside of the worm drive saws are that they are heavier and more expensive so as a novice you probably won't be using one anyway.

The ball nose endmill is based on a circle with the step down being limited to the contact area of the cut. This is generally calculated as the step-down rate (ap) = 0.02XD1. For example, a 10mm diameter ball nose can achieve a step-down rate (ap) of 0.20mm. Therefore, to increase the step down by 3 times, the tool diameter would need to be 30mm, which would be expensive and impractical in most applications.

With the new tool design, the issue moves to toolpath and strategy, as the tools need to be tilted at various angles to allow cutting contact all along the flute radius. This has meant that 5-axis machines and CAM strategies were integral to the future of the barrel tool concept.

Reminder: Answers generated by artificial intelligence tools are not allowed on Home Improvement Stack Exchange. Learn more

This is partially the same reason saw blades with more teeth make cleaner cuts. More small cuts are better than fewer large cuts.

Quickgrind Limited | Unit 5701 Shannon Place | Shannon WayTewkesbury | Gloucestershire | GL20 8SL | United Kingdomt +44 (0) 1684 294090 | e contact@quickgrind.com

Each tool has a radius, either along the flute or the end radii. This allows for a greater step-down rate (or step over for the Lens Tool) than can be achieved by using other conventional tools such as ball nose or endmills with corner radii.

Concentrating on tools for finishing, the most suitable tools were endmills with corner radii or ball nose endmills; with the latter being the most widely used. These tools have been used on a huge variety of surfaces with cycle times subsequently being very long due to the restrictions on the tool diameter and small step down (ap) needed to obtain the required surface finish. The only way to increase the step down was to use a larger diameter tool and this proved impractical due to the limited access and potential for collisions. So, the issue had to be addressed. We needed to develop a tool that allows for a greater step down without any loss of Ra finish that can simultaneously be used in restricted areas.

If, and I hope this doesn't happen, you were to cut a 2x4 across the toe of your boot with a full blade, it would be much more disastrous than a blade that's only projecting 1/4".

Also, there's the risk of forgetting how close things are to the underside of what you're cutting. (You might have only a half inch under your 2x4, which could result in you cutting some gravel or flinging a loose chunk of something.) You might be relying on your sawhorse to take a tiny kerf worth of damage, but end up hacking the horse in half.

However, by taking the segment of that 30mm diameter and adapting the arc to form the flute of the cutting tool known as the effective radius (Rw), the result would be a probable step down of 3 times that of the ball nose (ie 0.6mm instead of 0.2mm).

OPEN MIND Technologies was the first CAM company to develop strategies that enabled the new type of tool to be used. The conical barrel cutter was the first tool developed and integrated by OPEN MIND for its hyperMILL CAM system to enhance what the company calls it’s ‘Tangent Plane Machining’ strategy. The conical barrel tools employed in this strategy can cut machining times by up to 90% during tangent plane machining.

The best way to cut sheets in my opinion is to use a cutting guide such as the factory edge of the plywood/osb. Nail or screw the guide on either end 1 1/2 inches away from where you want to cut and hold the edge of the table against that edge and push it down the straight edge. You need to set the depth of your saw to pull this off. If you don't want to score the sheet underneath you can adjust it to just shy of touching the sheet underneath. Using this technique you can cut straighter than you could with a table saw and not necessarily parallel. It also saves you from having to bother chalking the line and following the chalk line, so when you get fast enough with it, the time to cut is comparable to chalking a line. If you don't understand these instructions this isn't for you.

This is about the angle of saw tooth compared to the angle of the wood. Intuitively if the saw blade is deeper (more blade sticking out) the tooth is more parallel to the surface as it exiting the wood increasing the chance of blow out.

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

With the ever-increasing capabilities of 5-axis CNC machine tools and high-end CAM software, it became apparent that this type of tool could be developed into various forms that could solve engineering and programming issues. The fundamental basics of the tool design are the same, that is to take a segment of a circle and use that arc to form the cutting edge to give greater flexibility for the contact area. There are four main types of ‘new’ barrel tool designs and these include geometries such as the conical form the tangential for, the lens form and Form F.

Once you have considered these questions and if you want to look further into the options, it is time to contact Quickgrind. Within a short consultation period, Quickgrind will have a good idea in how its technology can support your business. The only limitations are the physical properties of the component and the machine tool dynamics.

Never put your fingers under the board close to the blade no matter what depth it is set to. It's not like a knife where you can stop cutting yourself. They will be there and then not and they don't grow back. There's nothing wrong with a bit of caution especially with power tools.

Generally, cutting tool manufacturers publish product catalogues with a huge array of tool design types with the vast table of tool dimensions. At Quickgrind, we feel it is time for a change, it is time to cut the strings of catalogue limitations and demand the ‘right tool’ for your job.

If you're cutting on top of a stack of sheets or something you don't want to cut deeply into you should set your blade to depth unless you want to put a piece of wood underneath it to keep the blade off of the floor or ground or wherever you're cutting on top of.

For cutting dimensional lumber, the pros generally don't set the depth unless it's nailed down or something. You can actually achieve straighter cuts by holding the front of the table on top of the board, line up you cut and plunge down onto it as demonstrated here. Also, going full depth it's easier to cut straight as the saw blade itself is acting as your guide. If you're super concerned about kick back you probably haven't been using a saw long enough and should master the basics before attempting this.

At the end of the day, do what's right for you. If you can build effortless systems around being safe with a bunch of blade, then go for it. For what it's worth, though, my coworkers who reset blade depth accordingly are generally better at their jobs. (Not trying to draw a causal link; just noting a correlation.)

This will often depend upon how your CAM software operates, so you will need to contact them and understand their strategies and then contact Quickgrind for the tool design. To give engineers an outline of the sizes and possibilities that are afforded by conical barrel tools, these are a few examples and pointers:

When using a circular saw to cut through panels or dimensional lumber or whatever, the DIY folk on YouTube always set the cut depth to “a hair beyond what you’re cutting”. I’ve been blindly doing the same, but realized the other day I have no idea why.

At Quickgrind, we take the view that we never want to limit ourselves or our clients and partners by concentrating on ‘off-the-shelf’ tooling. Considering our ethos, we have applied a philosophy throughout our company of ‘Infinite Possibilities’. We have explained the basic types of tools, but the question we are always asked is: What is your range?

A recent demonstration using the MAXX Machining strategy and a Mazak i-400 with conical barrel tools supplied by Tewkesbury based Quickgrind compared a 10mm diameter ball nose tool and a conical barrel tool with a radius of 500mm on a 10-mm shank.

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

hyperMILL’s automatic alignment and nestling of conical barrel tools is part of the company’s ‘MAXX Machining’ strategy for High-Performance Cutting (HPC). This strategy automatically supports both the geometry and collision checking of conical barrel cutters, tangential barrel cutters and lens tools. Other CAM vendors have since developed solutions to suit the tools.

Various cutting tools have been developed down the years, resulting in vastly improved cycle times. Next in the spotlight was the finishing process and as demand increased for lightweight components with higher surface finishes (Ra), more challenges arose.

This is more of a preference of the user determined by experience in my opinion. I formerly worked building houses so I've probably made hundreds of thousands (I wasn't counting) of saw cuts.

Any saw manufacturer is going to tell you to set the blade to the depth of the material to keep people from cutting their fingers and toes off.