Official Luthiers Forum!

I have read ,with great interest, the archived discussions in the MIMF by Chris Paulick concerning "Chris Paulick's very detailed photo-essay on building a metal body resonator guitar, 100 images [pictures]".

I have one question so far, that concerns Chris' post of 06:02pm Oct 27 2003:

Chris says" The router collar set and the router inlay collar kit( see library discussion on how I make my mold templates) and a 1/8" carbide 4 fluke mill in a 1/8" to 1/4" collet adapter. I use the mill in my router with different collars and templates to cut the metal and in making molds and templates."

My question is:

Would you think that the 1/8" carbide 4 fluke ( flute?) mill Chris nentions would be the same or similar to the one sold by Luthiers Merchantile ( their part # CA4), and would you think it would be okay to use that end mill on metal?

Thanks for any help/ assistance you may offer,
Jack

I'd advise buying your end mills from an end mill supplier, LMII charges about 4-5 times what I pay from my supplier. A router is definitely not the ideal tool for cutting metal with an end mill, so you're going to want to save money on the cutters

So far as which is which, 1/8" carbide mills are more or less all the same from the perspective of how you'll be using them. Get just enough flute length to cut through what you want to cut through, that'll make them last longer.

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Thanks Bob for the reply; essentially what I was concerned about was ( was) it safe to use an end mill in a router;

Thanks again for your help,

Jack ( jackatwork)

It's noisy and wear eye protection but it works for the 20 gage german silver. I didn't have a speed control for my router or coolant sprayer then so I don't know if slowing it down or spaying coolant would have saved the bits from burning up as fast. And I haven't built any more bodies since then. I still have one that needs plating. But I think one mill got me through two bodies or maybe two mills.