Successful Wood Cutting

Has anyone had success cutting wood on the MR-1?
I’m concerned about the Low speed of the spindle affecting wood cut and finish.
Does the machine need any mods to protect the machine when cutting wood?
If anyone has been cutting wood I’d love to see some pictures of what’s being made!

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I do gun fitting and stock modifications for competitive clays shooters as a side business. Part of the reason for buying the machine was to make my own hardware instead of buying the stuff I currently do (I have received junk at one time or another from all of the different manufacturers). I am using the machine to do the pocket in the stock for the bottom hardware for adjustable combs using a 1/4" spiral router bit. I have a fixture that I used to use in my cnc router and then my manual mill and now back to cnc’ing. 8000 rpm is a lot higher than the 1300 in my manual mill and not nearly as high as the router but the finish has turned out good. In the router I didn’t bother with a finish pass I just took it all in one go with a couple of of steps down. With the MR1 I am doing a .010 finish pass after roughing out the pocket. I don’t turn on the coolant and I wait until things are dried from previous work before doing a pocket. Shop vac after the work is done. I can take pictures the next time I do one.

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Great thanks Joel, that’s super helpful information.
Pretty confident I’m going to be picking one up now!

And yeah, if you get the chance I’d love to see a pic of what the pocket looks like after that 0.01 pass.

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Below is a pocket I put in last night. It is .265 deep and took five steps to get to the bottom. Then a final pass to clear out .010 was done. There were some fuzzies at the top but I could remove them by brushing them off. The gap in the bottom of the pocket is because at some point in the life of this stock someone used a spade bit to bore into the back. I had to make a walnut plug to fill the bore and spade bits don’t leave the most uniform of holes when they are freehanded so my plug didn’t fully seat. It won’t show when the hardware is epoxied in so I am not worried the bottom of the pocket. I went with 5 steps to get to the bottom because the actual cut time is pretty small compared to the set up time and I didn’t feel like rushing it.


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