for the Corian users

[milo30]

I have a good supply of corian and love the stuff. I think that I am running too fast plus my bits are dull so I need to grab some new ones. I know that there are several people on here that use corian so I wanted to pick your brains a little.

I am using 1/4" and vcarving plaques with a .12 flat bottom depth, using a .5" 90 degree bit on a shark pro. What kind of speeds are you guys running your machines at for this type of material? I've just been adjusting by sound and chips. I'm running the colt router somewhere between 2-3 on the dial and running 75-100 ipm. I'm getting decent chips. for the most part it is doing a good job but I noticed on one that I ran the other day it wasn't as good of a cut on a couple of arcs as I would like. It may have just been the dull bit as I have been having decent success in the past but when I replace it in a couple of days, I wonder if I really need to slow it down or speed up the router or both.

What are you guys finding as a good compromise with corian? I am about to run a few hundred of them so I need to do them as fast as the machine should handle to get a good quality.

[4DThinker]

If the problem is just in arcs, you might want to inspect those arcs in Vcarve with the Node edit option. If they appear as a tight row of black dots this may explain why they cut poorly. The Shark will slow down/speed up at the end/beginning of each vector, and when the vectors are so short on arcs this can seem like a stutter when cutting. That stutter will be what makes arcs look rough.

Those tight dotted arcs can be simplified to cut more smoothly using the Curve Fit Vectors option in the Edit menu.

[milo30]

I will look at it. I didn't make this file and I never thought of checking it. Everything else seemed to come out as expected.

[Eagle55]

I'm gonna say that I run my 60 degree 1/4" router bit at about 28,000 rpm (only because it is a fixed speed PC690) and design at 50ipm and then normally run the FRO at about 40-80% so in general I probably run about 25-40 ipm for feed rate. I'm not sure how the slower rpm of the router would do, I would certainly want to run slower if I could. I tend to cut most things slower for several reasons. Mostly because I don't like the jerking and flexing that the gantry exhibits at faster feed rates (with that much flexing accuracy and error seem to go up) and the second reason is that I get very clean cut running it that way. It may stay clean if I run faster but I limit it to where the movement of the router has a reasonably smooth action. It seems like it has been a lesson that I learned early on, that "speed kills" for most projects. I know others run wide open and if it works for them, more power to them, but it doesn't suit me. There may be a happy medium, but when I start loosing the quality that I seek, I would start backing off, even if it takes more time and production isn't at the level desired. Just my oppinion I just notice that I have my pass depth for the 60 degree set at .080 also which would make your depth a two pass cut. I would play with various settings and see what happens. First slow the FRO down slightly and see if the Arc problem goes away or changes.

Roger