Woodcutting Tool

an instrument for changing the size and shape of semifinished wood products and parts by cutting the wood and removing the shavings, either manually or by machine (lathes).

Woodcutting tools are characterized by their cutting elements—their cutting angles and the shape of the cutting faces and blade. In addition, woodcutting machine tools have bracing parts, which come into contact with the corresponding parts of woodworking machines and lathes and serve to coordinate the position of the woodcutting tool in relation to the piece being worked and to transmit the cutting forces to the elements and units in the machines. The bracing parts vary for different woodcutting tools, but they all must provide safe operation and the necessary precision of operation.

Many types of woodcutting machine tools operate at cutting speeds of up to 60-100 m/sec and feed rates of 100-180 m/min. Because of this, the design of woodcutting tools and the materials from which they are made must meet rigid requirements for strength, wear resistance, hardness, toughness, and the ability to take a sharp cutting edge and maintain it over a long period. Alloy and carbon steels and certain grades of hard alloys and abrasives serve as the materials for woodcutting machine tools. The wear resistance of the cutting elements of a woodcutting tool is increased with casehardening, nitriding, and the application of electrolytic coatings. Woodcutting tools whose cutting elements are equipped with hard-alloy blades are used for working cemented wood materials (plywood and fiberboards) and particularly hardwoods. During operation, woodcutting tools must produce high-quality working surfaces that meet predetermined requirements for both dimensional accuracy and surface roughness. This is achieved by precision manufacture of woodcutting machine tools, standardized heat treatment of the tools, precision grinding and sharpening of the cutting edges, balancing, and precise mounting in the machine. Automatic grinding machines, whose design requirements are determined by the type of tool, are used to grind woodcutting machine tools. Woodcutting tools differ from metal-cutting tools by their small angles of taper and cutting and high blade sharpness.

Manual woodcutting tools include various saws, axes, chisels, gouges, bits, files, jointers, and manual smoothing planes. The construction of woodcutting machine tools is complex and depends on the type of mechanical woodworking method used: circular saws in rotary machines; planer knives in planers; form (profile) cutters and shank cutters in milling machines; and drills, countersink reamers (counter-bores), and bits in drilling machines.