I’d love to see an option in Easel cutting options, in addition to the X/Y/Radial options.
I do a lot of board flattening/planing on my XCP using a variety of different planing bits. My best bit is a 1.5" with replaceable cutting heads. As with most router bits, they are designed to cut in a certain direction (torsion and pull). From my experience, both on the XCP and my prior XC, the bit cuts smoothest in a machine back-to-front direction. When it cuts from machine front-to-back, and then back-to-front, it creates striping on the boards (see attached photo).
A note about these stripes, they are not ridged, just a matter of the bit cutting at its non-optimal direction. The pictured board is end-grain up, which shows the cut direction the most visibly.
You can see the machine front-to-back where it pulls the fibers, and the machine back-to-front where it shaves the fibers. It is a much smoother plane on the machine back-to-front cut.
So, with that all said, my feature request is a planing option that allows cutting in one direction only. I imagine the machine will cut from back-to-front, when it reaches the front, lift, move to the back, lower, then cut again back-to-front, etc. I suppose adding the option for any single direction might be valid depending on the circumstance.
If you watch videos of people creating router sleds for flattening, you’ll notice that they only cut in one direction. And, if you watch youtube videos of people using CNCs to cut end grain boards, you can see the lines in those as well, when using X, Y or radius methods.
This would make a great unique ability for Easel.