Tapered End Mills

[kc10flteng]

Hey guys...has anyone tried using tapered end mills as router bits. I have a project requiring a walnut inlay in a maple base pocket. I'd like as small a glue line as possible & the best way I've found is to cut the pocket & the inlay with a 5 or 7 degree angle but with the pocket being a bit deeper than the inlay & the inlay being a tad bit bigger than the pocket - glue, then sand the whole thing flat. Never done it with a bot before. Any experiences or sources would be welcome. Thanks, Ron.

[myxpykalix]

There was a mention about this earlier and it pointed to this link in the wiki:
http://shopbotwiki.com/index.php?title=VCarveProInlay

and it sounded like you could use standard bits but if you want some tapered bits you might call centurion tools and talk to fred. www.centuriontools.com

[jseiler]

If you have vcarve, you gotta see this...

http://vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=564

This tipped the balance for me to buy vcarve. It nice software. Vectrics tutorial on standard vertical cut inlays is pretty good reading too. The best part is how to take a graphic with lots of sharp "points" and smooth it so that a bit if a certain diameter will properly trace the outside. First you offset outward 1 bit radius, take that vector and offset it inward 1 bit diameter, then offset that vector outward 1 bit radius. This makes an outline that lies mostly on the original cut line, but smooths out the concave areas so that your bit will get into those places accurately. (Gotta turn off sharp offset though).

I've done v bit inlay in corian and wood with a standard 90 degree v bit and even the fine lines came out spectacular. AND you get sharp corners with the v bit inlay.

John

[knight_toolworks]

if it is not a big inlay say 6" or smaller vcarving works great. it is really accurate lets you have nice sharp edges and all. but it takes a lot of clamping pressure so it is limited to what you can clamp well.