Originally Posted by touser  thanks for the reply dertsap. I am fairly confident i know how to make the cad drawings, i just wasnt sure what tooling, feedrate, depth of cut, etc. would be needed for such small work. I have no experience with such small endmills and ME Consultant wont work with such small tooling as well. |
How small would you need to achieve the detail you want? If say two lines are spaced .025 apart a .050 endmill with no cutter comp would leave toolpaths that touched causing a bleedover type effect. The only one I have done I used a .050 2 flute carbide em and the graphics where simple enough that I could maintain sufficent spacing to prevent that with fore thought. Since it was naval brass I simply ran the Haas pretty much full out since it couldn't achieve the recommended rpm and adjusted the feed to compensate.
I'd suggest first deciding on the material. You know what the end result should look like so go for as easy to machine steel as possible that will give you those characteristics that you want. Then decied on the detail level you want and find a cutter that will be able to cut without toolpaths touching where they shouldn't. Next based on material check a few manufacture's websites or catalogs looking for the dia endmill you want and then it is a matter of applying the manufacture's recommended SFM and chip load to the cutter. Hope this gets you a little farther along. Until you have a drawing, material picked for stock and know your final depth for you toolpaths it is kind of a shot in the dark in recommending a cutter and how to run it