Frage Drinks coasters & Stand

VCarve Pro 7.5, Design cut with 60 degree 6mm v-bit, coaster stand & cutout 3mm (up-cut) end bit. Material is 9mm Birch plywood.


Tabs (2mm X 1mm) left to hold everything in place, trimmed off, sanded to remove up-cut fluff:


Now the interesting part; I originally had a different Celtic design (below) but it takes ages to cut - inverting the v-carve makes it MUCH quicker to cut (very important if you want a set of six).


I cut two stands as I already had a set of 6 coasters (original design) that needed one. The two stands took much longer to cut than the 6 coasters - should have used my 5mm bit with 2-2.5mm pass instead of 3mm bit with 1mm pass, but my 5mm bit is too long to use with the dust extractor.

Nice work!

I thought that I am shy with the offset, but a 3mm cutter can do much more than 1mm per pass. I cut 4mm plywood in one go with a 1mm cutter (in spruce). Recently I was told that I can cut up to 4mm copper with a 2mm cutter, my shyness limit was 0.5mm before ;o) and in the end I gave it a try with 2mm.

What feed rates are you using? I went to 1mm pass with 3mm due to a number of crashes (lost steps in Y, tried to run across the work piece 7-8mm deep).

I think some of my problem was grease dropping onto the screw thread from top rail, some of it was down to poor quality plywood (it took me months to source Baltic Birch Ply here in Scotland but the difference compared with big DIY stores is amazing).

Using a rule of thumb of no more than half diameter of bit is working well for me at 900mm/min in plywood. I accidentally cut some 3mm acrylic today at 1800mm/min in one pass and it scared the **** out of me. Very small job so it finished as I was reaching for the e-stop

I have some copper, brass and aluminium to try but I've not yet had the time (or courage) to try cutting any of it.

I am also in Scotland. I use SLECUK.com for birch ply supplies (and other woods).

Dear all,

Maybe I did not read everything on the forums so far but the thumb rule of not going deeper than half of the diameter seems to be very, very safe.

I cut 4mm ply wood with 0.8 and 1mm in one pass @ 400-500mm/min, mainly 18000rpm (10% below my maximum).

6m-8mm I do in 2 passes with same diameters.

I need to check Acryl now, ordered single flutes for it to test.

What is your experience?

frankjoke schrieb: Dear all,

Maybe I did not read everything on the forums so far but the thumb rule of not going deeper than half of the diameter seems to be very, very safe.

I cut 4mm ply wood with 0.8 and 1mm in one pass @ 400-500mm/min, mainly 18000rpm (10% below my maximum).

6m-8mm I do in 2 passes with same diameters.

I need to check Acryl now, ordered single flutes for it to test.

What is your experience?

What kind of plywood and do you use the default clamping system with the HPL table? I tried to mill 4mm multilayer birch plywood with 2mm carbide milling bit (2mm cutting depth, feed 600mm/min, infeed 240mm/min, 20000rpm) and the result was not good as described here . Currently I try to use more or less half of the diameter rule.