hey guys..

I am trying to cut stencils on my mill.. i setup a flat area, 400mmx400mm and affix the plastic sheeting to the acrylic table with double sided tape.

everythign works great but i am having nightmares finding cutters and speds that will work ok.

I tried a profile cutter, a pyramid and ever a tapered ballend, all with the same result, a rough melted edge. My spindle cannot go slower than 5K RPM and i cannot chase faster than 780mm/min for now.

the cuts are very shallow, 0.55mm to 0.65mm max so i set it to cut through to about 0.8mm since under the plastic sheeting is just more acrylic anyhow.

I tried "up" cutting and "down" and up yielded better results.

Is anyone else here cutting plastic sheet that can give em a poke in the right directions.

Attaching gcode im trying to cut. The stencil is to be used for spray painting. this is jsut a sample design.

maybe i need to be looking at a drag cutter rather than a cuttintg tool in the spindle?

You could spray a little bit of water with an old windex  bottle, this will help.

If you coldl buy a single flute cutter, this will also help.

Or some withe Petroleum on the endmill with a brush.

Jeff

i tried a profile cutter.. not so good.. but a 3 sided pyramid cutter worked ok. my spindle can only go down to 5000rpm which is what i suspect my problem i here.. i need to go slower or add coolant at the tip.

firebird did not work but the plain daisy thing was ok..

Maybe this is due to the haircut 

Chris,
If you can afford the time, cut it in 2 passes. Offset your first cut .005" - .010" or so........then climb cut it to finish.
Might get you by.

Chris, Are you using an air jet to your cutter ?. If not then try it and see what happens then.

Tweakie.

thansk for the tips guys, i think coolant is the answer, or a different brand/type of plastic sheet. bout this stuff from local $2 shop, its table place mats i think. dirt cheap, $2 for 6 of them, each one is 550mmx400mm

maybe too cheap

ok, i honed a profile cutter even more into a ...  ummm 2.5 sided cutter 

works like a charm.

Wife is happy, painting her bathroom as we speak, and as we all know, a happy wife is a happy life, an unhappy wife is a bucket of strife!

I expect to see photos of the completed bathroom with stenciled dragonflies and daises everywhere !.

btw. In the high street are two barbers who are in stiff competition. To increase trade, one put out a sign that said 'Haircut £3.00'. The following day, the other put out a sign that said 'We repair £3.00 Haircuts'. I could give you his address Chris if you fancy a trip to the UK.

Tweakie.

mwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaahaahahaha

the bathroom is still a WIP!

my hair is fixed tho