thinking of doing some small (and I do mean _small_) milling, to make a set of molds for casting type for hand setting printing (aka "Letter Press"). Not sure it is a cost effective method of getting a font, but this would be a hobby, not a business. Unless maybe I get into the type casting foundry bizz.
So, what I am looking for is something which can give good precision at the .005 inch level. (I'm sure, finding the mills is going to be another issue, but one thing at a time.)
Freehand carving on a milling machine is very difficult, even a rectangular panel meter cutout can go astray from backlash. Smooth curves and straight diagonals are nearly impossible.
If you can define a line by an equation you can have a spreadsheet print a list of x,y points along it and then plunge cut them. I would first rough cut them somewhat shallow with a fairly wide spacing, then finish at final depth and tighter spacing to minimize tool deflection or backlash jumps. Define the spacing between points in a cell so you can change it.
My antique Clausing mill is nice for milling small details because the table handles have very low initial static friction and enough rotational inertia that they don't jump from a light push. I can divide 0.001" of travel into 4 or 5 steps. Currently manufactured small mills I've tried were the opposite, sticky and jumpy.
I spent a year drawing the fonts for a new printer, dot by dot, the full IBM character sets, in regular, bold and italic.
thinking of doing some small (and I do mean _small_) milling, to make a set of molds for casting type for hand setting printing (aka "Letter Press"). Not sure it is a cost effective method of getting a font, but this would be a hobby, not a business. Unless maybe I get into the type casting foundry bizz.
So, what I am looking for is something which can give good precision at the .005 inch level. (I'm sure, finding the mills is going to be another issue, but one thing at a time.)
I right-justified it on my screen but it doesn't read back that way.
"Jim Wilkins" on Wed, 19 Jun 2019 15:37:56
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
I use "Full justification" in word processors, because the fiddly bits are handled by the machine. When (if) I ever get to setting type, what it is, will be what it is. "monospace" and left justified. With the first line of a paragraph indented five spaces.
Good luck on your quest to become a Printer's Devil.
"Jim Wilkins" on Thu, 20 Jun 2019 17:32:21
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
It is on a long list of "I'd like to be able to do that..."
>Gunner Asch on Tue, 02 Jul 2019 16:42:26 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Dunno how to do that either.
Gunner Asch on Tue, 02 Jul 2019 16:39:29 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
I'm at the "I've no real idea what the scope of this project will be" stage, other than to figure "It is going to be somewhere between industrial sized and a metric buttload."
When I get the current dozen projects done, then I'll be addressing this.
The molten plastic ink jet printer I helped develop in the 1980's could 3D-print mirrored and color-separated (CYMK) offset printing press plates.
"Jim Wilkins" on Wed, 3 Jul 2019 07:28:18 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Which is so totally what I do NOT want to do.
If I wanted build a printer, I'd have asked how to do that.
>
I'm also struggling with difficult tasks I don't fully understand yet, making and using man-powered log handling equipment for my homemade sawmill. These log weigh up to half a ton and need to be lifted from storage and moved over the track, rolled to inspect and best compensate for irregularities, then lowered into position and set at different heights on the ends since they taper.
Observing and researching what the problems are and how others have addressed them has been very helpful, although I have found my own apparently unique solutions which work quite well.
Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination...
Gunner Asch on Thu, 04 Jul 2019 12:50:25 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Sometime I want to do something a little old school. Maybe even before old school. "If John from the Jewish Hill can make it by hand ..."
Considering that the earliest molds were carved in iron with very small /fine tolerances - "What could go wrong?"
As with some many things, it is a gas seeing people working with CAD Cam (and the like) to reproduce "analog" mechanical systems & devices From the "original" CGI videos
"This is just CGI. You can't actually make a music machine using marbles." Wintergatan: "Hold my beer."
Along comes the Marble Machine. And the "improvement"
Some times, I want to do it the old fashioned way. Sometimes, the way before the old fashioned way was invented.
Fnord, I saw a video about Masahiro Kikuno making a "temporal clock" watch. This is a watch which keeps "natural time" i.e., every day has 12 even hours of daylight. Yeah. So I've been mulling the calculations necessary to compute that, sidereal v tropical time, that the day is an average over a year, blah, blah ... . Yeah, I do need a life. But sometimes, for what I want, "knowing why power tools were invented" s part of the process.
Leon Fisk on Thu, 4 Jul 2019 16:33:56 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Yep.
and sometimes I can do it "by hand" means I don't have to find space for A Machine.
I just found this:
"Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting"
It's long, but broken up into chapters, and chapter 2 "Setting up a CNC mill" "Pointers for selecting a low-cost, hobbyist-friendly CNC mill, stocking up on tools, and keeping the whole setup in great condition for many years to come." may be useful. Looks a couple of years old, so specific models might not be current.
The author's interest is in making molds for casting small precision plastic parts for robot building.
Elijah
------ there's also a link to a mill vendor
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