Rosette Cutter Speed

[mike wacker]

Anyone have a reference for what speeds to run the drill press using a Rosette Cutter. This is a bigger one, 3 inches.

[William OConnell]

Slow enough to keep cutting and . But fast enough to cut cleanly. e careful with those big rossette cutters they can burn the stock rather easily

[mike wacker]

I looking for a starting point.

[Joe Chritz]

The manufacturer will have recommended cutting speeds listed somewhere.

Insert cutters especially, but I have seen them listed up to 10,000 and some people rotate a lathe by hand for small runs, so there is huge variances.

Run out and flex will increase the reject rate by a long shot so slower is probably better in a drill press.

Start slow, say 500 RPM and try it out, you can always go up. Without knowing the cutter, machine and wood it is hard to say. I have even heard of people using a hollow chisel mortiser for doing them.

Joe

[James Suzda]

When we had to make a bunch of red oak rosettes for a customer the only thing that would work so we wouldn't get tearouts and burn marks was a milling machine turning at a very slow speed.
But, the "book says" 300 rpm.

[Larry Fox]

The ones that I cut in cherry for my kitchen were done at the slowest speed my drillpress would run (500 iirc). I got a little burning even at that speed. A light touch and go slow is the recomendation I have.

To eliminate tearout I built a jig of sorts which was a piece of 5/4 cherry with a hole the size of the cutter all the way through it (I just ran the cutter all the way through). I would then clamp this over the workpiece in the correct spot and cut the rossette cleaning out the chips frequently.

[Terry Achey]

I just purchased a Rockler 2 1/8" carbide tip Rosette cutter. The instructions say to use only on a heavy duty drill press or a milling machine. Suggested RPM was 1,200 to 3,000 depending on the hardness of the wood.

I did a couple test runs at 1,100 RPM on my light duty benchtop Delta drill press using red oak. I clamped it solid and, while I had a bit of chattering, it cut fairly clean. Had a small chip out on the second piece. I'll experiment more later at lower and higher speeds.

Be careful.... it sure is a wicked cutter! Double clamp and stay clear. Throws lotsa nice chips:D