So my dad would like me to engrave something into a slab of aluminum. I’ve milled some aluminum so far, but this will be quite a jump. Due to the finer details of the object it looks like I’ll need to use a 1/16" bit for some of it. So the questions I have are:
Is the 1/16" 2 flute bit sold in the store here going to work?
If so, is there any recommendations for feeds, speeds and depth? I’ve successfully pulled of 0.5mm depth at 400mm/min full engagement with 1/8" single flute
What’s the best aluminum to use in this case? Internet says 6061 is a pretty good choice.
Thanks, and feel free to add any additional advice.
1-The 1/16" should work but you machine and CAM will need to be spot on. You will want to do as much with a 1/8" as you can and just finish up with a 1/16". Not a super easy thing to do. Slow RPM and air will help.
2-I have never used such a small bit for milling, even in wood. Lots of others have though.
3-6061 is probably the most readily available and mills great.
Thanks for the tips. Slow RPM is a little tricky because I’m using the DW660 (unless someone knows a cool hack), but I do have a Dremel I can probably attach to this.
To close off this topic I can share my results for other’s interested. I built a dimmer switch speed controller. I’m guessing I ran it at 20,000 RPM, but that’s just a guess based on the sound. I used:
Depth: 0.25mm
Feed: 200mm/min
Due to the tight space I couldn’t use adaptive clearing and instead just used pocketing. So there was a lot of full engagement, but the tool and gave the slightest bit of hesitation a couple times.
These numbers were just an intuitive guess, I was told later that 0.2mm and 300mm/min at 8000 RPM was what a friend of mine who’s an actual machinist uses on their industrial machine. My numbers still worked out for me which was nice. I made some mistakes, but a lot of that was just tiny zeroing errors I have figured out how to avoid.
For the bit I tried a couple easily accessible options and ended up using a 4 flute stubby bit. I’m in Canada, so shipping just a couple bits was cost prohibitive from v1 and this project also became time sensitive so a boarder holdup would have sunk it. For reference, the bit I went with was this:
At the time it was an “Add-on Item” and only $9 CAD, now it’s become pricey.
I tried to find a single flute, but couldn’t get one for a reasonable price (considering I only plan to use it this one time). I’d be interested to see the difference.
