What end mill for engraving (high speed)

I am getting closer to having a high speed spindle (Bosch 1617EVS router). I have to make an adaptor plate, and I am almost done with coding.

Anyway, as far as using it goes, I want to engrave text, like on panels and such. What sort of end mill would you recommend. Thanks

Reply to
Ignoramus31855
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The ones I've seen have been second-cousin to a D-bit. Look like a scratch awl tip stoned in half. Guy Lautard had some tips on how to make one along with engraving pantograph drawings, see The Machinist's Bedside Reader series.

Stan

Reply to
stans4

You generally do not use end mills for engraving, you use single flute engraving cutters.

Visit

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for a lot of info on engraving as well as engraving bits. I used a carbide bit from them for my pano-bracket project and it worked well, even at ~2,500 RPM in my CNC'd mini mill. They came in 3 pks, so I could bring you one when I come up in a few weeks.

Reply to
Pete C.

Thanks. Nice website. I am on it right now. I will hopefully engrave with a Bosch router, and I would like to run them at 15k RPM or more.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus31855

Maybe the diagram here would be useful

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Reply to
David Billington

One tip: Get your base mill finished and debugged before going off on tangents like high speed spindles. Sort out your mystery limit switch trips, figure out your spindle encoder since you'd likely use use tapping more than engraving, etc.

Reply to
Pete C.

Lots of suppliers. Two common types split point and pyramid

see

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?PMPAGE=169&PARTPG=INLMK3&PMITEM=619-1266
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?_nkw=engraving+bit

-- Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Most that I've seen for engraving are vee cutters, some with flats on the end.

eBay has solid carbide vees for cheap:

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5 for $11.

-- If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do. -- Samuel Butler

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I just bid, don't outbid me.

karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

I've bought from these folks and been happy with the product:

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Here's an example of an engraving made in acrylic with one of their bits:

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Mike

Reply to
Mike Henry

Silly rabbit. Had you checked, you'd have found that you could do a BIN for -ten- of 'em from another guy for under $18. Maybe you'll luck out and be outbid after all. ;)

-- If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do. -- Samuel Butler

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Guys, what is a good angle for them? 90%? 60%?

Reply to
Ignoramus5734

Yes! Oh, you meant degrees, not percent, right? It depends on the depth of cut and thickness of the sheet. Do you want fine writing or bold? 60 is good for deeper cuts, 90 for shallower. What font are you going to use, what application, etc., Ig?

The correct answer is "It depends."

-- If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do. -- Samuel Butler

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Plasma / or laser - only way to engrave nowadays. So hook a laser head up to your Bport EMC2? why not?

Don't waste your time with cutters - its too labor intensive. duh.......... THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX (never heard that one eh?) Geeze you gotta computer controlled ZYX machine why not go out on a limb & do something spectacular? Hell EDM attachment also to burn out broken shit. geeze come on man. see the forest thru the trees here now.

Reply to
cncmillgil

What box? :)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Well, there are so many "boxes" that we live with. Reminds me of an old Toolmaker - acktually the mold shop foreman at the time. Good old George, smart guy. Knew alot about machining. fixtures, jigs, cutters, good at trig, cross slide turntable wiz, indexing with dividing & Harig heads ect. Anyway he had a black box. Kept in his tool box, kinda like a secret thing. Would always ask the guys that came over to his bench " Wanna see whats in the box today? - for a dollar" He'd change it around with different "stuff" he'd collected over the years, or sometimes nothing! Kept the money collected in a cup & when there was enough lunch would be on him. So lesson learned???????

Smart ass me: " I dont care about boxes, the question is, whats your bag man"

Reply to
cncmillgil

You paid too much. Some people are never confined to some box, no matter what size.

I don't carry a purse, either. :)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Your slide rule doesn't have a log scale. :-) I don't suppose most people will recognize it anyway. ...lew...

Reply to
Lewis Hartswick

Well ... actually the "log" scale on a slide rule is linear, as all the other scales are either logarithmic or more extreme (e.g. the log-log scales).

So -- based on that, the engraved slide rule has two "log" scales on the body -- and *no* scales on the slide.

Also -- it is missing a cursor. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Cursor? That's someone who doesn't know how to use a slide rule. ;-)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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