Anything wrong with cutting wood on a mill?

[awaqa909]

Just wondering if its a bad idea to cut wood on a mill. Work makes plenty of 2x4 nubs and I'm looking for a cheap material to learn with, on the manual mills.

Thanks,
Awaqa909

 

[jamby]

Lots of people think its a crime but if you cover the ways and make sure to clean the dust off and oil everything up its okay. I run lots of mdf thru with my add on router motor on my cnc knee mill. I have closed off part of the air intake on the top of the router to stop it from blowing dust all over and run two vacuums to help reduce it as much as possible.

Jim

 

[bcliff8]

I cut mortise and tennon on my mill sure makes them easy.


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[Tony Wells]

Nope. Not a thing. Of course, cleanup is a little different, oily surfaces attract "sawdust" and it doesn't just blow off with air. Use a shop vac if you can to minimize the mess. And of course, metalworking machinery rarely has the ideal speed for woodwork, so run it wide open, and consider the duty cycle, watch for heat and "sawdust" getting into any non sealed areas.

 

[JimDawson]

No problem, just vacuum up the sawdust.

 

[Dave Paine]

I do a lot of wood work. I have a wood lathe, table saw, router table, etc. I also machine wood on my metal lathe and milling machine.

On the metal lathe I mostly drill deep holes. I recently made some 20+in long pastry rolling pins. I rough turned on the wood lathe. The pin needed 1/4in in between the handles and the shaft, so I did the final machining on the metal lathe. More consistent dimension for this length on the metal lathe.

I have milled wood on the milling machine with very good results. I did not speed up the mill. I am now wondering why wood routers spin so fast. I got good results from the normal 675 rpm on the mill.

I use a brush to clean up debris then a shop vac, both for metal and wood. I never use compressed air. I will re-oil after machining wood.

 

[KMoffett]

I do it all the time. I also use laminated MDF (amazingly flat) as a sacrificial surface under thru-milled parts.
Cleanup before and after is important.

Ken

CNC mill doing hand holds in 100 tray ends from Baltic birch

 

[pineyfolks]

Most of my wood projects on the mill were rifle stocks. As someone already said a shop vac is best for cleaning. Air nozzles only seem to make the mess bigger.

 

[cjtoombs]

I've cut wood, both dimension lumber and MDF on both my mill and lathe. As stated by the other posters, it is messy. As for learning to use the machines, I'm afraid what you will do is learn to mill wood. Cutting forces are probably light enough that you can climb cut on a manual mill with no repercussions. It tends to be very forgiving on tools (surface finish on the wood is another story), so you won't get any idea of what kinds of depths of cuts you will get on metal. That knowledge usually comes from broken end mills.

 

[Franko]

I haven't had problems machining wood on my mill. Sometimes it seems I get better results with carbide router bits.

I've turned wood on my lathe, too. I was surprised how well carbide inserts worked. I just make sure to clean the metal chips off of both first. I save aluminum swarf for recycling and I don't want saw dust in them.