Thread: 1/8" bits losing its edge too quick

There are a couple of possibilities with your problem.

1) the glue & resin in the timber is melting as you cut & then gumming up the flutes in the cutter - the carbide is not blunt, it just can't reach the job thru' all the crud. You have started on the right track - use things like oven cleaner or paint stripper to soften the gunk, then a fine tipped blade (Exacto blade) or a needle in a pin vice to really get it out of the crevices.

2) the cutters are really not carbide, but HSS or even plain carbon steel & they are wearing out as well as gumming up with crud. Heating from friction caused by the crud will quickly wreck plain carbon steel bits. HSS will last longer. They still need de-crudding - they should last for more than one or two holes.

If these are 1/8 shank bits made for rotary tools like Dremel, there are a wide variety of bits made for these. In 'conventional' 2 flute router bits, the Dremel bits are HSS, as are most of the others. Rockler makes carbide 1/8 shank bits but they cost more than regular bits. Dremel and several others also make either solid carbide bits or 'structured' carbide rasps - unfortunately someone also makes HSS bits that look just like the solid carbide bits.

Take a look at Carbatec, Lee Valley, Rockler and MicroMark (http://www.micromark.com/)

Actually they are 1/4" bits
it was late when i posted that msg near 2am
sorry

Originally Posted by old_picker

What is best to clean em up??

Not necessarily best, but Simple Green concentrated cleaner is good for gunk burnt onto router bits & saw blades.

Bit more benign that some other solutions, too.


Cheers...................Sean