cutter indexing

Some of the larger three wing cutters cause a little too much vibration on the lighter weight lathes for my taste. But to set it up just line the middle of the carbide teeth with the pointed live center and you are good to go. If you get too much vibration I sell a 6 wing cutter that is only 1.25" diameter.

Be sure to indicate the cutter tips when you mount it so you get it on the mandrel perfectly centered. This makes a huge difference in smoothness of cut and vibration level.
Tighten the nut part way, indicate, bump with a wooden block to center, tighten, re-indicate, fiddle as necessary. Shoot for perfect.

Robin Snyder

treed said:

the issue i'm running into is when i use say a 1/8 in. width cutter,if it is not perfectly square front to back and left to right ,you will cut a 3/16 slot instead of a 1/8.the router is set vertical, centering is easy enough,just looking for a more perfect way to hold slot width to cutter width.thx

Click to expand...

Sounds like you are cutting ring billets.... when I did it that way I had that problem too. It takes some time to get it right. I cut some practice slots in a dowel until the slot width was right and then cut the billet. Now I use a CNC and no more problems.

If you buy another top slide, router and router mount for your lathe you can set that up to cut right and then just take the whole thing off and put it on when you need it. The setting will never change.

I do this for cutting rings and point grooves. Expensive but saves a lot of time and aggravation.





Kim

And the #1 most time saving tip is make sure your blades are mounted in the right direction, unless you just want to beat your wood.