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I was wondering if anyone has documented their cut settings when planing down different material and if not could we all contribute and consolidate findings in to one place.
I am presently working with hard maple exclusively with what I do and am trying to optimize the amount of time it takes to plane down a 33" x 10.5" surface area using a 1.125" planing bit.
If anyone has any information on their experience and findings, please advise.
Otherwise I’m just going to slowly step it up over time and dip my toe in little by little i guess.
Hard maple will burn if your slow the feedrate to make direction changes, I like using a raster roolpath in line with the wood grain and extending off of the ends. Extending off the ends allows the machine to slow and stop off if the wood and prevents burns…
What do I mean by extending off the edges? Well, i mean like whats shown on this video of surfacing a cupped pine board…
You’ll want a rather thin pass depth is hard maple will chip, and I would reccomend a planer if your board will fit
I set the board size, but the cut rectangle I set to board length + 4" (to over cut, I don’t like it planing X axis). I set the board width to +2". I also pull the position of X to -1" and Y to -2".
I set the cut depth to usually about 0.15", but this can vary depending on the amount I need to plane off. I ensure it is set to more than I need, the reason why is forthcoming.
Under cut settings, I set Y axis raster (as mentioned previously), and set the depth per pass to .01".
If my boards are pretty flat (mine are typically glued/laminated), you might only need 2-3 passes. I watch it and let it continue consecutive passes until it is flattened. When I think it is done, on the next ‘border’ run, I cancel the carve in Easel.
My prior way was a single pass, check, re-run the setup and start again. This allowed me to let the machine run until I think it is ready.
