# Cutting Dovetails with shop made tooling



## 8ntsane (Mar 14, 2012)

Hi Guys

Im looking for idea,s for shop made dove tail cutting. I have a need to make some tooling blocks for my AXA, and CXA QCTP.

I have seen the dove tail cutter on Bob Warfeids site that uses a carbide insert. I allso have thought about making the blocks in 3 pcs and bolting them together, with dowel pins to keep things aligned.

I was in the shop looking at possible ways to make my own dove tail cutter. All though Bob Warfeilds is a proven working tool, I got looking at the brazed carbide cutters. And I was thinking that if it was mounted in a tool holder simular to a flycutter, it should be possible to cut dovetails. The brazed carbide tool bits are cheap, and seem to stand up to interrupted cuts pretty good. Just got me thinking thats all.

I layed the tool bit in a tool block, and it does have clearance at full depth. This looks to be a doable way. I checked a fly cutter tool holder, and the angle isnt right, but thought, hey, I could still use it. Just tilt the head on the mill to get the angle proper. I think that a brazed carbide tool can be gripped better this way, compared to a insert getting hammered , and held on with a single screw. I was also thinking, could I make a tool holder that would take multiple cutters, 2- maybe three?

So, tell me how you did your dovetails. Im taking about on a milling machine.
I know the guys with shapers allways like to say, well, if ya had a shaper it would be a easy job! Well, I do not own a shaper, and dont intend to any time soon. Got any Idea,s guys? I dont even want to think about a dove tail cutter, store bought. Those pointy teeth look pretty fragile, and the tips go south first. Plus the expense, they arnt cheap!

What do you think?


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## Chucketn (Mar 14, 2012)

I went the route of making my own dovetail cutter per Bob Warfield. It's definitly doable. I was making Harold Hall's Delux Grinding rest. It had 2 pairs of dovetails. My single insert cutters did the job, but every insert I had was destroyed before I was finished.
I ended up buying a proper dovetail cutter to finish the job. The interupted cut hammered the dickens out of my X2 mill, and I eventually had issues with the controller because of that. I will never cut dovetails on my mill again with a single insert cutter. If I had to go that route again, I would make the cutter with at least 3 inserts.
Just my 2 ¢ worth.

Chuck


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## 8ntsane (Mar 14, 2012)

chucketn said:


> I went the route of making my own dovetail cutter per Bob Warfield. It's definitly doable. I was making Harold Hall's Delux Grinding rest. It had 2 pairs of dovetails. My single insert cutters did the job, but every insert I had was destroyed before I was finished.
> I ended up buying a proper dovetail cutter to finish the job. The interupted cut hammered the dickens out of my X2 mill, and I eventually had issues with the controller because of that. I will never cut dovetails on my mill again with a single insert cutter. If I had to go that route again, I would make the cutter with at least 3 inserts.
> Just my 2 ¢ worth.
> 
> Chuck



Sounds like it wasnt a good experiance.
My guess is the X2 mill is a smaller sized machine. The hammering effects are not good on any machine. I do use fly cutters on my machine, and figured it cant be any worse, or is it? Looking at Bob Warfields insert holder, had me wondering just how long they would hold up, your reply kind of summed it up. I didnt want to go that route because of the expense of inserts.

The store bought dovetail cutter, how was that? Did it hammer on the machine just as much? Ive heard of guys trashing them pretty quick too. Playing with speeds and feeds seems to knock the tips off pretty fast. Once that happens, Its back to get a new one. Im thinking I will try using a fly cutter holder, and angle the mills head to accomidate. Alleast I can find out how bad the hammering wil be on my machine, a Bridgeport clone

I suppose the last resort will be making the blocks up in thre pieces, and bolting/pinning them together. And this just maybe the way to go for a few custom holders, and not  hammering my milling machine. Any others have comments here?


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## Chucketn (Mar 14, 2012)

I can't remember for sure where I bought the Dovetail cutter. It was a direct import from CDCTools or RDKtools, or somewhere similar. I did succeed in roughing out the dovetails with the home made cutter, but I destroyed all the inserts I had and the cutter body was hosed also by then. I actually made to or three holders and destroyed them all.
The store bought cutter worked great. I, too, was scared of destroying it trying to find the sweet spot. I only had to cut one pair of dovetails entirely with the store bought cutter. Taking it slow and using lots of cuttioil, I got it done. The store bought cutter has 8 cutters andmakes a nice buzz noise when it's happy. I think it was around $15.00 US. I have the receipt filed away and can look it up if needed. I'd buy it again, but bigger next time.

Chuck


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## yugami (Mar 18, 2012)

8ntsane said:


> I know the guys with shapers allways like to say, well, if ya had a shaper it would be a easy job!



Having owned a shaper I can safely say that what the shaper guys are leaving out is all of the manual work it takes to do this easy job.

On my mill I can do the rough in in 3 passes (two tool setups) (center, top angle, bottom angle) then finish pass the top and bottom angles and be done.  This is all with autofeed so I'll be off doing other tasks.

Shaper dovetail cutting uses a combination of the autofeed and manually working the cutter head depth.  You're there for 100% of the operation.  While with milling machines you have the downside of always needing a different tool to do a different operation the shaper has gone out of style for this very reason.  

Good for the home shop if you can put the amount of work into the operation that is necessary.  Bad if you need to do a large number of repeat dovetails.


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