Plug Cutter For Ipe?

deckman22

Anyone know who makes a good plug cutter for ipe? The ones sold at the local stores suck. No joke the one I bought at Blowes could not even make one plug. TIA

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Deckman
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Joe Wood

Way too much effort to cut plugs for a average sized deck. I order mine from East Teak. http://www.eastteak.com/ Ask for George.

They have some very nice 3/8" face grain tapered plugs. One tip I can give is to get the plugs before you start countersinking to make sure the plugs fit the holes correctly as different countersinks can have slightly different sized holes.

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John Hyatt

I use the Lee Valley cutters but like the Joe Mon said if your going to plug the whole deck its better to get the factory made ones there is just too much Smoke on the drill press!!!

Little thing that happened to me making some Garapa and Ipe plugs for a big bench project>> After a while making those little bores the bit gets wadded up with the burnt oil and the dust is combined with that hot oil. The John Mon happened to look away for a while, even with a big fan blowing the dust out the door some of the hot mixture had started a little smolder fire.<< Not Good.

Nothing happened I caught it in time but its something to look out for. J.

Teetorbilt

Have you tried these? http://www.wlfuller.com/html/carbide_tipped.html

They work for me. Speeds, feeds and lubrication are everything. Most people try to go too fast. When working in extremely hard or oily woods water will not hurt them and act as a lubricant/coolant, if you need to go really fast look into misting systems as used in machine shops.

You may also want to purchase a dedicated press and isolate it for just this purpose.

For a fairly common wood like Ipe, I'd just purchase, especially if I needed thousands of them.

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John Hyatt

Thanks Tee!! those are some intersting bits. J.

deckman22

Thanks guys, you all are probably right I should just buy some more. However I hate paying .45 per plug especially when I need a buttload of them, seems like a rip off. I'm not using my usual supplier on this job & while these new guys have some good pricing on the ipe it seems they are gouging me on the little stuff like screws/plugs, even sent me a can of anchorseal that I did not order.

John, no joke the smoke is a killer when cutting those plugs. My plugs are not coming out nice looking like the ones I bought, they are all burnt up looking.

Thanks Teetorbuilt for the link, that water cooled plug cutter may be the trick.

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John Hyatt

Al,the lee valley cutters have three strange looking twists making up the edges they are not carbide but they dont get dull even doing ipe and make a very uniform bunch of plugs. I use a forester bit for the hole. The taper makes it possible to use a small amount of glue,this wont matter with ipe but using Garapa/tightbond 111 if the glue pushes out a lot the lighter material will leave a dark glue line around the plug. Thats a small thing I know but using less glue keeps it away.

I dont release the plugs on the table saw like the alum balusters conectors just pop them out with flat tip screwdriver. This works slower but my powermatic even with a thin kerf blade will wreck the little darlings. J.

deck king

Couple of things to keep in mind, I noticed some of you worked with the material in a shop setting. make sure the room is very well ventilated, the saw dust it super fine and has a high static contant, which could cause a combustion expolsion with only a spark. ( picture the air in the room your working in catching fire) Make sure you wear a mask, the saw dust (while being non-toxic) could get imbedded in your lungs and takes a long time to work it;s way out. ( I found this out first hand) also, when you sweat in a closed environment the saw dust sticks to your skin, when you wipe the sweat off you will imbed the duct into your skin. This gets really painful if you do this around your eyelids, it took nearly a year ( and several bottles of cortazone (sic) cream ) for my eyelids to heal.

deckman22

I'll look for those when I go to Texas Tool Traders today. I wouldn't be able to order online & get them in time from Canada as I need it now. I may have to buy some more if they don't have something better than the ones I have used all ready. The plug cutters I got at HD actually cut nice plugs, the first half dozen or so then all the stuff starts to get built up on it & they come out burnt.

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LA CROSBY

Building boats I've always used Fuller bung cutters and counter bores. They last for years. There were days where I would have to cut 1,000 teak bungs with a drill press and band saw. FULLER is the best, I think they are in Warwick, Rhode Island.

John Hyatt

Al, any cutter is going to burn the sides of ipe,not to worry the TB 111 is fine with that. Making ipe plugs is a Bitch! it sounds like your going to do it anyway sooooooooooo,,,,, just clean that cutter on a reagular wont take all that much just a small wire brush scrub scrub scrub....then back at it not a big deal ......and just think your making 45 cents every time you pull down on that handle!!!!

John Mon