Drills have their cutting edge on the end of the tool with helical grooves to guide chips out of the hole. CNC drills usually come with a sharp tip for guiding the drill called a Bradley tip. In the wood products industry, drills are often used for dowel holes or 32mm-spaced holes used for shelving adjustment.
It is important to notice that the drills in this picture are alternately colored black and orange. This is because the gears inside cause adjacent drills to spin in opposite directions, requiring drills of opposite rotation and helix for proper drilling.
Endmills are flat on the end. Their primary cutting edges are on the periphery of the tool. Endmills with cutting edges on the end of the shaft can be used for plunging applications. These tools have a variety of uses and are commonly used in contour routing.
A round endmill is oftentimes used to machine a surface that must be smooth. Its round end allows it to contour smooth, arced profile.
Engraving bits have a V-profile coming to a sharp point at the tip and are also commonly referred to as V-groove tools. This bit is often used for machining very intricate surfaces or engraving text. The sharp tip allows it to get into small inside corners and make very small cuts.
Certain applications require a special profile to be cut into to the workpiece edge. The blade is cut to be the opposite (or negative) of the desired profile. Usually, profiled bits are used with removable knives to maintain a constant profile throughout the production process with the added benefit of reduced sharpening costs.
Assembled heads consist of multiple cutterheads stacked on top of each other. This approach is used when flexibility is important and tool changeover time needs to be minimized. A window manufacturer might use this approach because a machine processes numerous profiles each day for different product lines. (6)
Oftentimes the raw material to be machined is not perfectly flat. Facing tools are used to machine a perfectly flat face onto the top of the stock. This might need to be done if the top plane of the material and the worktable x-y plane are not exactly parallel. They can also be used to flatten the surface of a spoilboard. The grooves in a previously routed spoilboard will oftentimes ruin the suction between the board and workpiece and must therefore be removed. Another application for facing tools is machining large pockets commonly seen in raised panel manufacturing of MDF. (3)
CNC machines can be equipped with small circular sawblades mounted to aggregates. These are used in instances where a very quick, straight cut is desired, such as panel sizing.
Hand-sanding complex profiles is time-consuming and can yield inconsistent results. A profile that matches the previously used cutting tool can be fixed with an abrasive face for precise, consistent, and fast sanding.