What are burrs and rasps?

Burrs and rasps are different to most other cutters as they are designed for carving, grinding, and shaping rather than cutting, and can usually be used with materials which would quickly dull other router cutters. The Trend professional range of rasps and burrs are all STC. 

Solid carbide router rasps

Trend solid carbide rasps are specifically designed for grinding, shaping, and carving glass reinforced plastic (GRP), sometimes known as fibreglass. There are three cutters in this specialist range including two coarse rasps, which can not be used for plunge cutting, and a fine cut rasp which can be used for plunge cutting. One of the coarse cutters is available with twin bearing guides and is ideal for use with a template. 

Burrs and rasps

Trend burrs and rasps are available in standard sizes, for general carving and grinding, as well as mini, for more intricate modelling work. They can be used with wood, plastic, GRP (fibreglass), and metal. Most of this range have a bottom cut function, except the cylinder burrs, although they are generally designed to be used with light-duty routers which can be detached from their base so they can be easily manoeuvred for delicate work. 

Design

Flutes

Burrs and rasps differ from other cutters as they have multiple, small and very thin flutes which wind around its body. Most burrs have single direction (single cut) flutes which run in a single direction. Solid carbide rasps have crossover, or diamond, flutes (double cut), where the flutes cross each other for more abrasive cuts.

Bottom cut

Most cylinder-shaped rasps and burrs do not have a bottom cut function, with the exception of the fine cut rasp. The other burrs, with rounded or pointed tips, do have bottom cut, so they can penetrate surfaces. 

Guides

Rasps and burrs are usually designed for free hand intricate work, rather than use with templates, so they don't usually have guides. Solid carbide rasps are more suited to guided cutting, and the large coarse cutting rasp comes with twin bearing guides for use with templates.  

Applications

Grinding, carving, engraving, and sculpting

Burrs and rasps are designed to carve and grind in various materials, to produce various shapes and patterns. Complex and delicate hand sculpting and engraving tasks can be completed with burrs, with mini burrs being ideal for fine modeling tasks. 

Removing welds and burrs in metal

Burrs can neaten joints or edges of cut metal by removing welds or burrs. 

Drilled hole enlarging

Most of the burrs available from Trend can be used for enlarging drilled holes, often for countersinking screws or bolts. There are three sizes of countersink burrs specially designed for this.

Ranges

All burrs and rasps from Trend are solid Tungsten carbide.

• Professional STC router cutters