Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Looking for some advice on a project

« on: September 06, 2010, 06:50:12 PM »

I sure do, I've done a number of simpler images and hundreds of lines of text with it, I know it sounds somewhat rough but it works suprisingly well and it's quite rigid for what it is. I take it nice and easy and for something like this I'd definately practice on a junk gun. I'm a full time gunsmith at a gunshop (www.newmellegunshop.com) and have a number of junkers to practice on. I also build my own line of sound suppressors (www.amermfg.com) and primarily engrave text on them. I also use chemical etching from Martronics but it works best on stainlesses. It's real touchy on bluing and this particular one is a blued receiver.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Looking for some advice on a project

« on: September 06, 2010, 06:21:47 PM »

Hood, my machine is a home built device, a 3 axis sherline clone that I put japan stepper motors on and built a device to hold a dremel hand held rotary saw as my spindle. It spins at 5, 10, 15k. I generally use this thing to engrave text only, not anythign like this. I run my feeds around 10-15ipm and fine tune with Mach3 as required per job.

See IF you can find a copy of the scene as a coloring book page. Then convert it to lines with Inkscape(free)

http://www.patrioticcoloringpages.com/memorial-day/009-iwo-jima-picture-to-color.html

Just a thought, (;-) TP

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Looking for some advice on a project

« on: September 06, 2010, 11:54:16 AM »

That photo/v carve is nice but I can't afford it for a free project, you know what I mean? Rich, I'll try it. Thanks. Mike

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Looking for some advice on a project

« on: September 05, 2010, 04:54:49 PM »

I'm not sure how to post a picture here, it's the famous picture taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Flag raising on Iwo Jima, a quick search will bring it up. I've got an area about 1.5" x 1.5" that's nice an flat. I'd like the picture on there and I can do the text, the Man's name and such. I've got the Eagle, Globe and Anchor USMC emblem for the other side. I'm really looking forward to doing this.

 Thanks,
  Mike

15

General Mach Discussion / Looking for some advice on a project

« on: September 03, 2010, 01:50:43 PM »

I'm doing a job for the local VFW hall, they are going to present a shotgun to one of their oldest members who is a Veteran of Iwo Jima. I'm going to do the engraving for them at no charge but I 'd really LOVE to engrave an image of the Flag Raising photograph by Joe Rosenthal. I'm looking for advice on turning an image like that into line art that I can make into an engraveable .nc file. I have a nice flat area that would look absolutely amazing with that image on there.  Thanks in advance,
 Mike

16

General Mach Discussion / Just a THANKS

« on: August 26, 2010, 10:11:43 PM »

Everyone has been extremely helpful to me lately, all of my questions are answered and everyone has been more than willing to help. It's a rare thing these days too. I just wanted to give a universal Thank You.

 Mike

17

General Mach Discussion / Help with a .dxf

« on: August 23, 2010, 10:45:15 AM »

I've got a .dxf file I HAD working to engrave. I lost my PC and had the file transported between pc's so may times I can't get it to work. I'm looking for someone who might be willing to take what I have left, look it over and possibly repair it into a clean dxf again. I use this for engraving on the side of certian firearms, when you see it' you'll recognize it.

 Thanks,
  Mike

18

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Repeat program and step down question

« on: August 22, 2010, 05:30:16 PM »

Is that one of the  Mach wizards? I'm away from the machine and program right now.

19

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Repeat program and step down question

« on: August 22, 2010, 04:37:09 PM »

Hello, I am using 2Linc's engraving software to generate Gcode for engraving text. It appears to be standard Gcode that I can import directly into Mach3 as an nc file. It works well.  How do I repeat the program and step down .001 on the Z axis per program repeat? Thanks, Mike

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Starting positioning questions

« on: August 22, 2010, 03:37:23 PM »

I'm in a similar position with engraving tezt. What I do is to place my part to be engraved and manually jog the table to where I want the engraving to begin, I then zero the DRO's and look at my Gcode in the program window and program the X, Y and Z axis to what the readout of the Gcode says. In other words, the start of the program may call for X-0.125, Y0.00, Z0.200. I'll enter those values in the DRO's and then run the program. It works well for me but I'm sure there is a better way. To get to the Z axis to 0.0, I'll manually turn it down by hand with a cigarette rolling paper ( I bought a case of 5,000 of them for 4.00) between the tip and the part to be engraved. When the paper  is "caught", I call it zero. Again, it works for me but I'm sure there is a better way. MAch3 is an extremely powerful program and I'm probably using only a small percentage of it.