Best bit for abs?

I broke down and got an xcarve. Was thinking of cutting pieces from 1/4" abs to make some sort of dust collection device. What is a good bit for cutting abs?

I find the Solid Carbide 2 Flute Straight End Mill - 30237-02 works great for abs and other plastics

There are several important considerations when deciding on a bit. Firstly, the most obvious is chip load. This is determined by the number of flutes, the feed rate, and the spindle rotational speed (rpm). In general, plastics cut better, which is to say that they melt less and have cleaner finishes, with a larger chip load when compared to other materials like wood and plastic. This means faster feed rate and slower spindle RPM. However, the Dewalt DWP611 has a minimum speed of 16,000 rpm. With a two flute end mill, I have to run my X Carve at very high feed rates to achieve acceptable chip loads. The jerking of the machine due to taking curves and corners at high speeds can cause inaccuracies in less stiff machines. On the other hand, while going from two to one flute halves your required feed rate for the same chip load, I believe I recall reading that single flute bits are less accurate in general than two flutes because two flute bits are evenly loaded on opposite sides.

Ultimately, my recommendation is: start with a single flute. Learn chip load calculations. Do a stiffening mod to your X carve and then get a two flute and double the feed rate.

Alternatively, get a SuperPID closed loop controller to bring down the Dewalt’s minimum RPM.

^ What he said ^ cause I kinda just wing it :sunglasses: (but it did work great)

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