For the most part we mainly engrave magnesium, which is relatively soft, so pass depths with end mills for roughing and d-bit/conical cutters for finishing is 2mm

For brass engraving I use the same end mills,but differently angled d-bit/conical cutters, with pass depths of 1mm

Because of the construction of the machine we steer clear of using any coolants as it will just splash all over the place, although coolant can be used if ever needed.

I grind my own d-bit/ conical cutters and just buy the end mill cutters as they rather cheap and last about 1 month per cutter.

Attached some pics of d-bit, conical and end mill cutters in case my terminology is different.

For the vacuum table that's made out of aluminum we used coolant, was a rather messy process, and decided right then and there that coolant will never be used again

I'm yet to cut anything in steel as I doubt the machine will be rigid enough, especially since the vacuum table base is only 20mm thick and one can feel a slight vibration on it when running lower rpm spindle speeds in the region of 8000 rpm.

In the future I would love to change the vacuum table into 30mm granite vacuum table as this will ensure less vibration and a slightly more accurate finish as well as hopefully keep the machine within 5 microns.

Wow, that's some impressive work you've done there pinky. Thanks allot for sharing with us!

Glad you guys like it

There nice.
I used to make these in house at Kshoes in Kendal and I'd spend 2 days writing the program on a PNC control board that used answer phone tape to store the program ;-)
I'd do the same now in half a day on my hobby equipment!

Steve

Pinky, those look great. I've done some hotstamping and have a bunch of old plates from some Letterpress printing shops I bought out. I thought they were Aluminum until I tried to melt one, I didn't have a Magnesium fire but I think I was close.

lol Jammerm, magnesium can be risky to engrave, unless you know what you doing as I've set one machine alight in the past. Those magnesium fires are almost impossible to put out :/

Great work Pinky.

Tweakie.