Milling Wood – CNC Woodworking
| Workpiece: | Wooden signs, nutshells, bicycle frame |
| Material: | hardwood, beech, maple, poplar, glued wood, chipboards |
| Application type: | 2D milling and 3D milling |
| Used machines and software: | High-Z router, wood milling cutter |
| Used software: | ConstruCAM 3D |
Milling wood with a CNC router
The proven CNC router High-Z/T even processes hardwood like oak, beech tree and ebony with high accuracy. It is critical for precise woodworking that the machine is stable in every axis because hardwood’s resistance applies high counter forces on the entire machine construction. The ball screws of the High-Z T-series bring more precision and speed to the milling process without wearing out from the force effect.
The above-shown workpieces were made with a High-Z router. Our customers appreciate the flexibility of the machine. The operator can put the CNC mill on every table, but we also supply the machine with a base frame. The open frame construction enables the machining of high objects, such as acoustic guitars. The user can even manufacture and reproduce small wooden parts which are often needed to make wood models.
High-Z router for accurate woodworking
Circles and roundings milled in wood on a High-Z machine
Milling a guitar with an open frame
For which woodwork do you need a CNC router?
Milling complex shapes handwork with conventional tools quickly reach their limits, for example, milling bevelled recesses, roundings or finish-machined contours of writings, patterns or images. A CNC router can do this 2D and 3D woodwork more precise and faster than a skilled worker due to processing calculated milling paths with presets of feed rates and infeed depths.
Wooden sign milled with V-Carving
Wooden clock with a 3D picture relief
E-guitar with roundings and recesses
Perfect 3D woodworking for flat surfaces and clean cutting
Milling deep, flat surfaces and clean cutting edges are crucial for precise woodworking. A computer-controlled cutting bit with rotating blades can work out complex recesses with 3D effects much more accurate than a hand-operated tool. The High-Z router produces clean edges and surfaces which even don’t need a final grinding. Certainly, a high-quality wood cutting bit is necessary for perfect milling results.
Fully functional worm gear milled from wood
Clean cutting edges and flat surfaces
Wood fitting with round sections
CNC cutting of wood instead of using conventional tools
Fast, precise and economical production
More frequently artisans, skilled workers and hobbyists use a CNC router for woodwork which they have handcrafted before. The machine is quicker, more accurate and less error-prone. The operator can use the working hours more efficiently because he can do other work during production. He even increases his profit, because wood consumption is much more efficient due to less material waste.
Practical example: Furniture making with CNC woodworking
Furniture making is a good example of time efficiency using a CNC router. The carpenter has to mill grooves into faces and sidewalls of cupboards to slide in separation- and back walls as well as little holes for connectors and big round recesses for concealed hinges.
Milling groves, holes and concealed hinches into a wooden plate
Drilling holes for connectors
Milling groves and holes on a RaptorX-SL machine
In our practical example, we processed chipboards with a depth of 2200x600x190mm on the RaptorX-SL milling machine. The applied solid carbide cutting bit mills the grooves and concealed hinges with clean and free of burrs edges. The cutting bit is perfectly suitable for all laminated and veneered kinds of wood. The cut is 20mm deep, and the feedrate is between 30 and 60mm per second. We vacuumed the chips and the fine dust directly at the cutting tool to avoid any health risk. Due to the suction, there was no need for cleaning work afterwards.
Pictures made of plywood
Frank Bierings from the Netherlands makes wooden pictures with a High-Z CNC machine. The special thing about the Pop-Art-Pictures ist the plastic 3D effect, which results from a smoothly milled wooden relief and the painted shads afterwards.
Milling with the software Vcarve Pro
Before he starts to mill Frank Bierings downloads the samples for his wooden pictures from the internet. He doesn’t have to worry about copyright infringement because he only uses the motives for non-commercial purposes. In the given example Mr Bierings chose some Cat woman motives, which he wants to put in scene impressively. First, he mills some contours with different depths into the wood board to create a 3D effect. For generating the milling paths, he uses the software Vcarve Pro, a 3mm cutter and a 60 ° V-Bit for bevelled edges.
Grinding and varnishing
After finishing the milling work, Mr Bierings flattens the pictures with sandpaper and paints them with wood lacquer. The final results are beautiful 3D wooden pictures in POP-ART-Style.
Create drawing and save as .dxf
Milling contours for 3D effect
Painting the contours
Milling a Turner‘s Cube made of hardwood
Getting down to the nitty-gritty on the CNC router with the HSC (high-speed cutting) method
Milling a Turner’s Cube made of oak, pear- and limewood shows the High-Z router’s performance. The cubes look nested inside each other, although they are made of one single piece of wood. Without grinding the contours are already flat, and the surfaces are already even. The excellent woodwork is made with a milling machine of the High-Z T-series and a high-quality cutting bit.
Turner’s cube made of oak
Cube milled from pear wood
Milling a wooden cube made of oak with a High-Z
