2021 Product Showcase: Freud Ball Nose Bits

You may not be good at breaking out the carving tools and carving by hand, but with the help of a CNC router and the right router bits you can easily carve incredibly intricate shapes in wood. 3D carving on a CNC router isn’t difficult to set up, but to get the best level of detail it’s important to match the size of the router bit to the size and scale of the 3D carving. The eagle in this video was cut with a 1/32” ball nose bit. The large motorcycle carving was done with a 1/4” ball nose bit.

What’s a ball nose bit?

The tip of a ball nose bit is round. A 1/32” ball nose bit has a diameter of 1/32” at the tip of the bit. The smaller the number, the finer the detail the bit can produce. This must be balanced against the machine time. Though a small ball nose bit will produce great detail it may not be practical to use one for larger 3D carvings. The machine time would simply be too long and, on a large carving, you wouldn’t see a significant increase in detail. On small carvings, like the eagle shown in the video, the fine details a small ball nose bit can produce are incredible.

Why a taper?

The taper on a ball nose bit allows you to make deep cuts you couldn’t otherwise do. Imagine a straight 1/32” diameter router bit with a ball nose on the end. It would, probably, break almost immediately. Thanks to the taper you can do deep cuts with minimal chatter and hardly any breakage.

More info

For more information on Freud router bits and their other cutting tools visit the company’s website or call (822) 334-4107.