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Fly Cutter

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Anyone have much luck using a Morse Taper Fly Cutter in the tail stock for roughing out
hollow vessels? Do these work quicker then a Forstner bit for removing the interior wood?

FLY-CUTTER-MT2-WITH-HSS-TOOL-BIT-_1.jpg
 
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You won't have any luck! All you are going to cut is a groove, there is nothing to remove the center. It's meant to move over a surface to produce a flat surface. Not drill holes, unless there is already a hole there. It will enlarge a hole. I'd think you would have a horrible time keeping the morse taper from slipping in a tail stock.
 

Bill Boehme

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You won't have any luck! All you are going to cut is a groove, there is nothing to remove the center. It's meant to move over a surface to produce a flat surface. Not drill holes, unless there is already a hole there. It will enlarge a hole.

And, even if a Forstner bit were used initially to drill a hole that cleared the head of the fly cutter, think about what will happen when the back end of the cutter hits the hole.

Here's something else that won't work. :D

image.jpeg
 
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There are different cutting bits that you can install in a fly cutter.
You can cut and grind a profile on the cutter blade as desired.
 

john lucas

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As mentioned above it wouldn't work but also it would need to have a drawbar to make sure it's secured in the #2 morse taper and can't move or rotate. On most lathes you can't use a drawbar on the tailstock because it changes length when you crank the quill and a drawbar won't let you change the length.
 

Bill Boehme

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There are different cutting bits that you can install in a fly cutter.
You can cut and grind a profile on the cutter blade as desired.

If you grind on it enough, you'll eventually have a spade bit and then it might be useful. In order for it to be stable, the center needs to engage the wood first which would take some serious grinding.

But considering all the "if you did this ..." and "if you did that ...", the bottom line would be that nobody would seriously consider trying to make it work ... maybe if you were stranded on a desert island and it was the only tool you had ... but then there wouldn't be any electricity ... one more problem to solve.
 

hockenbery

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Anyone have much luck using a Morse Taper Fly Cutter in the tail stock for roughing out
hollow vessels? Do these work quicker then a Forstner bit for removing the interior wood?

For hollow forms with a large opening i drill a depth hole with 1 1/16 twist drill bit on a #3 taper.
I can go about 8" deep with that bit. I have a 1/2" drill with a handle that will drill 18" deep.
I prefer twist drill because it has no lead point to make a hole that needs to be turned away.

the cutter you show in your picture depending on how deeply the taper seats will cut the travel of the ram + the 2-3 " the cutter is proud of the ram. So the if your tailstock ram has a 4" travel you might get a depth of 6-7" Which may be enough.

I find removing wood with hollowing tools is more efficient and more fun that using larger drill bits.
Also larger diameter bits can't get very close to the bottom of the form if the bottom of the form has a smaller diameter than the bit.
 
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I don't see any reason why a fly cutter wouldn't be a good method for sizing openings on hollow vessels. We use a bit more sophisticated version in metal cutting on CNC milling machines all the time, they're called boring heads.

There shouldn't be any more problem with slippage of a fly cutter in a Morse taper than with a Forstner bit. Actually, maybe less problem since the torque load could be less. The one shown is not a tanged arbor which I would prefer.

Consider it another possible tool in your arsenal. When I was involved in automatic wood turning we used a similar tool to put an inside corner radius on shallow straight sided boxes.
 
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If I had a spare flycutter hanging around, I might use it to set the size of a box lid recess. I always get confused when making a box getting a good size and a square geometry for the lid recess.

The picture that Bill B. put up (or was it his cat that put the picture up?) is also a good tool for setting the box lid recess size.

With both of these tools, the side walls of your box lid recess will be square (and I hope parallel). For me, I would then find it easier to make the box tenon (lip?) in the box body to fit the lid.
 

Bill Boehme

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I don't see any reason why a fly cutter wouldn't be a good method for sizing openings on hollow vessels. We use a bit more sophisticated version in metal cutting on CNC milling machines all the time, they're called boring heads.

There shouldn't be any more problem with slippage of a fly cutter in a Morse taper than with a Forstner bit. Actually, maybe less problem since the torque load could be less. The one shown is not a tanged arbor which I would prefer.

Consider it another possible tool in your arsenal. When I was involved in automatic wood turning we used a similar tool to put an inside corner radius on shallow straight sided boxes.

The original question asked about using the fly cutter in place of a Forstner bit. It should be obvious that you can't bore with a fly cutter since the head of the tool will stop once it butts against the wood.
 

Dennis J Gooding

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I agree with Bill that the fly cutter would not be of much use in hollowing, but I have found it useful a few times, mounted in a Jacobs chuck in the tail stock, for trimming an already-hollowed box or other vessel to get a perfectly straight-edged deep recess of accurately predictable diameter. By appropriate reconfiguration of its cutting bit, it can also be used to trim a roughed-out tenon with the same accuracy. For best results, the cutting bit should be ground to provide a bit of relief just behind the cutting edge. I use two different sizes of fly cutter depending on the diameter of the object being trimmed.
 
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The original question asked about using the fly cutter in place of a Forstner bit. It should be obvious that you can't bore with a fly cutter since the head of the tool will stop once it butts against the wood.

Presumably, Mike was talking about using it with an already drilled hole. At least that's what I assumed.

The question as I read it is, will this remove material quicker than a Forstner. I'd say no, but it can do things a Forstner can't. One thing it can do is accurately size a hole or a shallow recess (maybe for a lid) where a Forstner is limited by the stock sizes available. And, as I said in my original post the bit can be ground to leave a radius on a vessel's insider corners.

It's just another tool which may or may not have use for turners. It had use for me.
 
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I have a production run of small lidded boxes that are used as containers for a specialty item.
I intend to use it for several processes that will be completed in steps to increase production
rates on the run. After this run I plan on setting up a CNC for similar items.
 
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This post went from asking about roughing out hollow vessels with a fly cutter, to now just sizing boxes. I guess if we really knew what was going on during the first post, it would be a lot easier to help. No more early responses for me!
 
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The tool can be used in various ways on a mill.
My main interest was to see if anyone was using it for other purposes on a wood lathe.
With the Morse Taper base this would be a quick change tool for the tail stock.
Just a matter of having the appropriate cutter for the tool holder.
 
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