Nautical Research Journal


teeth and ceramics. Dental burrs come in a plethora of sizes and shapes. T ey also suffi ce for some metal applications, like deburring or edging, and are commonly used in a 120-volt rotary tool at high rpm. T ese 120-volt rotary tools I fi nd to be too heavy for most detail carvers. T ere are some lightweight units on the market, but they start at around 7,000 rpm, which is too fast for good carving. Also, I have found their power insuffi cient at lower rpm to be of use to the serious carver.


T e design of these dental burrs’ cutting edge is intended for hard substances, not for wood. T ey can be used at the carver’s discretion, but they might slow you down, or go off in their own direction rather than the direction you want them to. Like a saw blade designed for metal, their teeth are close together and uniformly spaced. A good wood- cutting blade has teeth spaced further apart, oſt en with variable spacing, and has a more aggressive attack on the wood grain. If we create the same attack with the teeth of our dental burr and modify it, we can achieve a cutting bit that cuts wood aggressively and does not run or roll in its own direction as we


cut with it.


I fi nd that I have to customize my dental burrs in order to make them do the job I want them to do. When you successfully customize the shape of the burr’s cutting edge, you will be able to zip through your chore with ease and great control.


In order to customize my burrs, I use a diamond burr. (Figure 2) T is is a round diamond burr; the diameter depends upon the size of the burr you are customizing. I use it to remove some of the cutting edges from the factory-made burr. Removing every other cutting edge is a good start, but aggressive burrs for roughing might be leſt with only two cutting edges for better stock removal.


Figure 3 shows a collection of stock bits and custom “Tiny Tips” as I call them. T e smaller plastic holder holds the bits I am working with on the present carving. I arrange them from leſt to right and from large to small. You might want


to arrange them


according to your own method. Work progresses from using the largest bits fi rst for roughing to the


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3. A collection of stock bits and custom “Tiny Tips” as I call them.


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