Tooling, Endmills & Feeds-and-Speeds

The cutter that actually does the work. Hobby CNC tooling has settled into a few brand tiers (cheap import / quality hobby / industrial); feeds-and-speeds calculators bridge the gap between "what bit do I have" and "what RPM and feed do I run." Tool selection ties tightly to toolpath strategy, spindle/VFD, and machine rigidity.

Endmill brands (mills + serious routers)

• ★ Helical Solutions — paid, premium; widely cited as the gold standard for HSM-friendly carbide endmills. Aluminum + steel-specific lines; expensive ($30–$100/bit). The Tormach / Datron / pro-shop default.
• ★ YG-1 Alu-Power / E5 / X-MILL — paid, mid-premium; the everyday-pro endmill brand. Excellent in aluminum, available everywhere.
• Kennametal / Sandvik / Sumitomo / Mitsubishi / OSG — paid, industrial; mostly through industrial distributors. Top-shelf, unnecessary for hobby unless you scored some used.
• Datron — paid, premium; their single-flute aluminum bits are legendary on small high-RPM spindles (Datron / Kress / Mafell). Standard on Pocket NC.
• Maritool — paid, mid; small-shop USA brand with reasonable prices. Good aluminum line.
• Garr Tool / Niagara Cutter / SGS — paid, mid; the next tier down; consistent.
• DataFlute / Atrax / Accupro — paid, hobby-friendly through MSC.

Router bits (wood + plastic + soft alu)

• ★ Amana Tool — paid, mid; the woodworking-CNC standard. V-bits, compression bits, downcut, upcut, spoilboard surfacers. Available everywhere with good documentation.
• ★ Whiteside — paid; USA-made router bits; favored for sign work.
• Onsrud — paid; the industrial woodworking router-bit brand; standard on Onsrud, Multicam, Avid PRO.
• Freud / CMT — paid; consumer-tier router bits; fine for plywood and MDF.
• IDC Woodcraft — paid, hobby; YouTuber-store-tier curated bits and bits-as-courses ecosystem.
• Drillman1 (eBay) — cheap; bulk-pack carbide router bits; surprisingly serviceable for hobbyists.
• Carbide Depot / Bits & Bits Company — mid-cost; well-curated hobby selections; Bits & Bits sells the V-bits Carbide 3D ships.

V-bits, compression, downcut, upcut

• V-bits (60° / 90° / 30° / 15°) — for V-carving signs; angle dictates stroke width. Amana 45770 (60°) and 45772 (90°) are hobby-default.
• Compression bits (up + down spiral combined) — for plywood / melamine; clean top and bottom surfaces. Onsrud and Amana both make these.
• Downcut spirals — push chips down; cleaner top edge; chips can pack the slot.
• Upcut spirals — clear chips up; cleaner bottom edge; can fuzz the top.
• Single-flute (O-flute) for plastic and aluminum — chip clearance matters more than flute count for soft, gummy materials.
• Ball nose — for 3D contour finishing; ¼" and ⅛" common in hobby kits.
• Tapered ball / bull nose — for figurine 3D work; VCarve / Aspire / MeshCAM all support them.

PCB / engraving / very-small bits

• Drillman1 PCB bit packs — cheap; ⅛" shank carbide engraving and 0.4mm–1.5mm drills.
• Kyocera / Carbide Depot PCB drills — mid; steady up from Drillman1.
• Bantam Tools bit packs — vendor-specific for the Bantam Tool Mill; expensive but well-matched. See PCB Milling.
• 0.005" / 0.010" engraving cutters — for fine engraving and PCB isolation.

Feeds-and-speeds calculators

• ★ HSMAdvisor — paid (~$100/yr or $300 lifetime); the hobby-pro feeds-and-speeds calculator. Built-in tool library, machine rigidity profiles, HSM-aware. The realistic answer for "what feed should I run" on a Tormach / Shapeoko / PM-25.
• ★ G-Wizard Calculator (CNCCookbook) — paid (~$80/yr); long-running competitor with a deep tool library and HSM coefficients. Includes a G-code editor companion (G-Wizard Editor).
• ★ FSWizard — free web + paid app; HSMAdvisor's lighter sibling, by the same author. The "I just want a number" free option.
• Fusion 360 built-in tool library — free with Fusion; tool library + recommended feeds. Often pessimistic but safe.
• Vectric / Estlcam built-in calculators — bundled; conservative defaults that work for the wood/plastic hobby use case.
• Niagara, Helical, YG-1 vendor calculators — free, vendor-specific; the gold standard if you're using their bits.
• Kennametal NOVO — free; industrial; overkill for hobby but free.

Tool databases & libraries

• ★ Carbide 3D bit library — free; JSON tool library you can import into Carbide Motion, Fusion 360, Estlcam.
• Tormach tool library — free; geared at PathPilot / Fusion users.
• Datron tool library — free; very useful if you're running a high-RPM spindle.
• MMOpti — paid; tool-management database for shops with hundreds of tools. Overkill for hobby.
• TDM Systems / Zoller TMS — industrial; not for hobby.

Tool-length sensing / setters

• ★ BitSetter (Carbide 3D) — paid (~$170); bolt-on tool-length probe for Shapeoko/Nomad. Auto-zeros Z after every tool change. Worth its price.
• Triquetra-3D / TouchPlate-Pro — paid; XYZ probe blocks (see Touch Probes).
• DIY toolsetter — a fixed limit-switch + macro; standard recipe for grblHAL / FluidNC / LinuxCNC users.

Tool maintenance

• Endmill resharpening services — Boyar-Schultz, local industrial sharpeners; paid per bit. Worth it on $50+ bits.
• Carbide Saw + Tool / Drill Doctor / Brush Research flex-hone — small-shop sharpening; mostly for V-bits and drills.
• Spindle runout indicators — Mitutoyo / Mahr DTI; ~0.0005" runout is the hobby-acceptable threshold.

Pick this if…

• First Shapeoko, "what bits do I buy": Amana 45770 (60° V) + 46202 (¼" downcut) + Carbide 3D #102 (⅛" flat) and grow from there.
• Hobby aluminum on a Tormach / PM-25: YG-1 Alu-Power 2-flute or Datron single-flute.
• Pro-grade aluminum on any decent machine: Helical Solutions.
• Wood signs / V-carving: Amana V-bits + IDC Woodcraft bit packs.
• Plywood production: Onsrud or Amana compression bits.
• Want a feeds-and-speeds calculator without a subscription: FSWizard (free) or vendor calculators.
• Will pay for the best F&S tool: HSMAdvisor.