Hi,

In my opinion, forget the 90 deg bit for text that small....use a very sharp 60 or less so you can get
some depth out of it....

As far as wood goes, Pine, Oak, and Cedar will be tough to get great results with,

Ash & Maple should be better and Cherry and Walnut are pretty good choices too.
I'm sure there are other choices too, but these are the ones I've used before.

Hope this helps some,

Jeff

I use a 30 Degree bit from Home Centurion Tools. It gives you a crisp cut with dept on small letters, just be careful of the tip.

I frequently v-carve letters as small as .3" with a 60 degree bit. I have found that when I cut letters, slower is better and the smaller the letters the more that is true. Others may have different experiences so you might want to run a few experiments at different feed rates.

Joe

I use a 30 degree, 1/8" carbide engraving bit from Bits & Bits. In end grain engraving I routinely do lettering 0.125" with excellent results in domestic and exotic hardwoods. With side grain engraving I've had good luck by coating the wood with shellac to give it a little more support before engraving the text.

I'll second GaryR6's warning. It's a single flute bit and it's just like a scalpel. I learned the hard way to remove it from the machine and store it as soon as I'm done cutting.

Ed