Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm cutting mother of pearl for inlay that is .050" thick and need a 1/32" diameter bit with 1/8" shank to work in a micro die grinder turing a maximum of 56,000 rpm. What type bit do yous use to cut/grind shell? Who is a good supplier?

Thanks for the help.

Ed

I haven't actually used these but since no one else is chiming in - I've heard that Precise Bits shell cutters do a bang up job. I for some reason want to say that a forum member was involved in their design (Bob Garrish?)

http://www.precisebits.com/products/car ... /shell.asp

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I've used the precisebits shell cutters, and they work very very well. I've also used carbide dental mills in a super high speed dental handpiece (400K plus RPM) to cut shell, and they work great too, but they are 1/16" shaft and probably wouldn't do so well at 56K anyway.

The precisebits shell cutters aren't cheap, but I've cut a lot of shell with mine and am still using my first cutter. I'm only running at 18,000 RPM, but they should do fine running faster.

Dave

You'd be better off cutting the shell pieces out with a 3/0 jeweler's blade in a handheld fretsaw on a small table with a V cut out of it (sometimes called a birds mouth table).

You will have much more control over the cutting and the jeweler's blades (available from http://www.ottofrei.com are very cheap indeed.

A hand held high speed router is normally used to route out the pocket in the wood for the shell inlay. Use the blade-cut shell piece/s to mark the pocket with a very sharp blade (Xacto or #11 scalpel) then visually route to the line (rub chalk dust into the cut line for more visibility).

YMMV.

Good luck,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Good point--I didn't mention in my post that I only use these bits in a CNC machine...

Dave

400,000 rpm? Is that a typo?

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Mike Lindstrom

Double checking, it's actually 320,000 rpm. It's a dental handpiece with ceramic bearings--great tool for routing inlay pockets. At that speed, the tool doesn't ever tend to grab when the wood goes from hard to soft the way slower routers do. The downside to the speed is that you have to work quickly to keep from burning the wood.

Dave

Wow. That's really fast. I had no idea.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

This little saw works real well for me with the jewelers blades from Dave`s post.
http://www.micromark.com/microlux-mini- ... ,7114.html
James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee