Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: using a CNC mill to engrave metal

Forgive me for jumping in in the middle of a thread.......

If you are looking for a shallow engraving, why not just use the "Diamond
Drag" method ? I supervised the making of literally a million engraved plates
from brass, aluminum and polished stainless steel. (well, maybe not a million
but pretty close !)

McMaster has some 1/8" ones. Cheap too, around $7 each. You can build a
simple spring loaded housing with adjustable tension. Just drag the diamond
tip tool on the material...... no rotating necessary but you can with
specially cut diamonds. Amazing quality if you have a tight machine. You can
get .007 to .010 deep per pass.............


Chris L

dougrasmussen@... wrote:

> Smoke & David,
>
> It's been my experience that engraving very shallow (a few thousands)
> characters is difficult with a conventional cnc milling machine. If
> the workpiece is not absolutely parallel with the machine's table
> surface you're likely to get washout of characters across part of
> your work. Facing off the work surface prior to engraving is only
> sure way I've found to do shallow work, but that's not always
> practical.
>
> Some high speed commercial engraving machines compensate for uneven
> workpieces by using a spring or pnuematic loaded Z axis with a nose
> piece which rides on the work surface to assure accurate depth of
> engraving. Without such a device it's almost impossible to do fine
> engraving on things like stamped metal nametags, etc.
>
> Doug
>
> --- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "Smoke" <gordonr@r...> wrote:
> > The biggest factors concerning what cutting tool to use would be
> the size of
> > the lettering and what sort of effect your trying to achieve with
> your
> > n"engraving". Since the depth of cut is only going to be a few
> thousandths,
> > you could do your engraving with a .005" (or so) diameter end
> mill. If you
> > wanted the lettering to look more like real engraving, you could
> you an end
> > mill with a tapered point.
> >
> > BTW...if you use a .005 or a .010 dia. end mill for cutting the
> letters,
> > you'l have some really accurate letter shapes which can easily be
> converted
> > for gold/silver inlay work. Sounds like a great idea for doing
> lettering
> > inlay work on firearms.
> >
> > Smoke
> >
> >
> >
> > >david albert wrote:
> > >
> > >> I was wondering if anyone has any experience using a sherline
> mill
> > >> with a CNC package as an engraver. Ideally, I would like to be
> able
> > >> to type some text on a keyboard and have the mill enrave some
> metal
> > >> down a few thousandths with what I typed. What end mill should I
> > >> use? What CNC software? Any web site you could point me to?
> thanks
> > >> in advance.
> > >
> > >if you are doing 2" high letters, a 1/16" or smaller end mill
> might do. If
> > >you are doing smaller letters, a flame-point carbide bur (Dremel-
> style
> > >tool) will do nicely.
> > >
> > >Jon
> > >
> > >
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