I'm very new to the cnc world and recently had a couple of book cases made as test pieces before going on to build for customers, when I received the pieces back all the edges were very ruff and hairy and I had to sand them all down, is this normal?
any suggestions?
what type of cutter bit are you using? upcut? downcut? if you are using a downcut, you may find the bottom edge turning out rough. if you use an upcut, the top edge will be rough. we use a combination up-downcut bit and that gives us the best edges.
another place where you might get rough edges is if your part overhangs your spacer board at all. if the cutter bit is cutting the material where there is nothing underneath it to support that edge, it can give you a rough edge.
As Mark has mentioned, type of cutter will make a differance in the cut quality; cut feeds and speeds can also have some affect on the quality of cut. If a cutter has excessive wear and is dull, this could also be another factor.
As David suggest conventional cutting will leave more and more fuzz as the bit loses its edge. While the downside to cutting conv. is when the bit leaves an lipped edge on skinned parts. Hopefully Thermwood will help us resolve this issue by allowing a roughing pass or multi directional outline cuts. I hope you get your problem figured out.
Forrest
Ps. David, are you as crazy busy as I am? I haven't seen you on the forum lately.