Originally Posted by
ajf
I'm doing a series of red cedar stairway panels for a client largely based on Vector Arts wildlife series models. The panels average size is 4'x2' by 1 1/4" thick and max. depth of the carvings are around 3/4". I have PRSstandard with a Porter Cable router. When I create the roughing and finishing tool paths for these carvings using the default parameters for 1/4" and 1/8" round nose end mills that Aspire provided I noticed my total cutting time ends up to be close to 20 hrs. per panel. I would like to speed up this time if I can and was wondering if anyone has any experience with red cedar and what type of speeds and depths they were able to use and get a satisfactory final finish done in a reasonable amount of time. Clear red cedar is priced like gold here so I don't particularly want to do the trail and error method of finding out how much I can push this machine. I guess I should also ask if you have any particular bits you find work well in red cedar.
Thanks