Onsrud VS. Whiteside

[drodda]

I am wanting some feedback from people who have used both the whiteside and the Onsrud bits. I am wanting to use the 1/2", 3/8" ,1/4"downspiral.

I am trying to justify the extra money to buy the Onsruds. I get the whiteside 1/4" bits for $10.00 each the Onsrud ones are $35.00 each. Will the Onsrud ones outlast and keep the sharp edge long enough to outlive 3-1/2 whiteside bits?

Is the quality of the cut with the onsrud bits that much better?

I am cutting 3/4" baltic birch. I am also cutting 5/4 cherry walnut and oak.

[knight_toolworks]

I would compare onsrud with centurion myself. been very happy with both. but I can't always afford onsrud. whiteside are good too but I have only used their router bits and straight bits.

[Gary Campbell]

Dave..
I just finished cutting a job with the 1/2" Onsrud downspiral. The parts were 8ea. 1 1/2" by 12" by 7.5 ft. red oak stair stringer halves to prep to be glued into 3 by 12 beam stringers.
Each stringer had 7 rises, each rise has 3 approx .5 d x.5 w x 8" long dado for splines. Dado's were cut in 1 pass. I cut the profile in 3 passes. All around 1.5 ips. Needless to say a lot of cutting. I had to change to a new bit with each pair of halves. Luckily I bought them on eBay for a few $. I havnt used the whiteside bits, but have used the Centurion. Centurion seems every bit as good as Onsrud when comparing equal geometry. Hope this helps
Gary

[drodda]

Gary,

At $80.00 a bit for an Onsrud 1/2" bit would you buy new ones for the same job again? Or is there a place to buy these besides directly from Onsrud that is cheaper? The same Whiteside bit runs $40.00.

[Gary Campbell]

Dave...
I am not sure. They are good bits. Due to the thickness of the oak it was difficult to hold down with the aggressive cutting and the fact that only 60% of the material was left. I figured the down spiral would help. I am sure that the heat from doing 1/2" deep with a downspiral is what dulled the bit. Since I bought 5 of them for $50 shipped, I dont think I would pay $80 for one, but if it was the only bit that would do the job..... the job needs to get done!. In hindsight, I could have used the t track for some hold down, and used a mortise compression, but every day is a test, and the Bot is my favorite test track.
Gary

[Gary Campbell]

Dave...
I just looked. If I had to buy. It would be the Centurion. They are all under $30 and the others I have bought there are lasers!.
Gary

[knight_toolworks]

that does not sound like a lot of cutting to me. now I have not used downcuts on hardwoods yet but I cut a lot of tropical woods like padouk and ipe and purpleheart and such and I get a lot more cuts then that.
when I was making ipod docs I was hollowing out these boxes that are 3x4 and 1.2" deep I cut 70 of them with one straight but that got fairly dull. that was about 3 hours or so of cutting. I have cut 20 or so planes out of a 3/8" onsrud rougher all out of tropical woods. I have been sticking with 1 ips at about 16k for hardwoods.

[drodda]

I usually go 1.1 to 1.3 IPS on hardwoods at 16,000 rpm.

I use only whiteside bits now but have been looking at others. I tried some new bits last week that were sent to me free to try and get me to purchase from a new supplier. When they hit the wood for the first time the noise they made nearly scared me to death. I quickly shut it down and made sure everything was tight and tried the second bit. Needless to say that I will not be buying from that company any time soon. You think a router is loud in the first place. Those bits let out a scream like you would not believe.

[knight_toolworks]

cutting solid woods is always noisy try cutting purpleheart it really whines. I have not went past 1 ips it keeps the noise down a bit and the time is not a critical thing. but still no matter what bit I use cutting tropical woods is very noisy and I have to keep my door shut or everyone needs earplugs (G)

[gene]

Dave
I agree with Steve . I use centurion 1/4 compression (recomended to me by Jack J) and have been very happy with them. Cost is around 18-19 in that area.

[drodda]

Gene,

If I understand you need your material to set up off your spoil board for a compression bit? Or does it just cut into the spoil board?

[fleinbach]

This topic has been discussed several times over the years. Here is a link to one of the lengthy discussions.

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/show.cgi?tpc=29&post=17178#POST17178

This was 3 years ago and since that time I use Whiteside bits for 95% of my cutting. They are quiet, I never get the high pitch sound I used to get with Onsurd. I never broke one while cutting mostly MDF but some hardwoods accept if I hit a screw, and sometimes I have completely sheared of a screw without breaking the bit .

I know Onsurd works great for some but they just did not work for me.

I just purchased a verity of Amana bits. I have some new jobs requiring some special profiles that Whiteside doesn't make.

[gene]

Dave
I cut alot of 3/4 mdf and plywood and let the bit cut into the spoilboard about .002 after a while i resurface the table and go again . for my spoilboard i use the cheepest lightweight mdf from the big orange box store and replace as needed, i DO get my moneys worth out of the board. if i start a new set of cabinets i resurface it then and it does fine. Some people set their bot`s bit to cut to the table top when cutting a job , me i just have always done it the other way, kind of like my life ,, done the other way, but thats a whole different topic i`m sure...

[drodda]

Gene,

I also cut into my spoil board on every project. I currently have 10 sheets of 3/4" glued down to the bot. I will go through this in about 8 months and I will replace it all again. I clean the spoil board at least once a week. I can't get my spoil board at the orange store as I have a 60" x 120" table and I have to buy this from a hardwood lumber supplier.

I have never used a compression bit on my bot though. I have used them with a straight edge on my hand held router to get a clean edge on a cabinet part. I just never thought that they would handle the initial plunge through the baltic birch. I do 95% of my cutting with a 1/4" downspiral. I might have to give this a try though.

Frank,

I have read that post before and I have read many others. I was just wanting to see if anyone had some current updated information to bring to the discussion. I am happy with my whiteside bits. I was just wondering why anyone would spend the money for the Onsrud if the same whiteside bits were available. Believe me I have worn the words off the search button on this forum. Thought maybe I was missing something here?

[knight_toolworks]

just ramp in compression bits and your fine. I b et they were designed for cnc work in the first place.

[geneb]

Could someone post a link to the Whiteside website?

thanks!

g.

[drodda]

I buy my Whiteside bits from
http://www.woodworkersworld.net

Alan give free shipping on orders over $50 and he also ships the same day you place your order. He also offers quantity discounts on orders.

[elcruisr]

I kiss the top of my spoil board with every cut. Dress it off every few days and replace it every 1 to 2 months. I buy my MDF by the unit wholesale so always have some around.

I use pretty much Onsrud exclusively. Don't pay retail if you buy more than a few tools at a time. Find out who your distributer is in your area, tell him what volume you'll be using and see if you can get a discount. I probably go through 150 to 200 tools a year and get a decent discount.

I also save up my used tools and send them back to the factory for resharpening on the same tool they were made on. They just do a better job than any resharpener I've tried. I usually send them in lots of 50 or more for a good discount on resharpening. I resharpen once then get rid of them.

One of the things I like about Onsrud is their regional tech rep. He's always available for advice and really knows his stuff. He has saved me loads of experimentation and time. When I have an oddball project he already knows what tool works the best and how to feed it since somewhere along the way he's worked with it before.

I got a whole lot of parts each year (20,000 to 40,000) and I tried all the different tooling out there and for me as a parts production shop they're the best I've tried!

[Gary Campbell]

Steve K...
After your post, I went back and checked my toolpathing and parts. I was getting about 400 lin. ft. of .5 deep single pass cutting in red oak out of a bit. Quality is good except for the last 50 ft. We did the finish cuts today on the glued up stringers. Used another brand as we needed a 3" CEL (4.5 OAL) and only got a little over 300 lin. ft. before the quality went down. These were cut at 1 ips, 11.5Krpm .25 stepdown, climb mill, (11 passes)and by the time we got to the .010 final pass... the bits were shot. All in all I am still very happy with both bits.
Gary