Setting Centre to Centre on and escapement

[ArtF]

Hi John:

  Yes, tips are the issue. not too bad in hardwoods, but in plywood it can break then easily. I was thinking of making a glass
escapement ..for that tinkle sound on a tick , but I can imagine thats even worse than plywood. :)

Art

[John T]

Hi Art
I would like to make on of brass but I've never cut brass any tips?  My spindle is very small. (50 watts) - if I go too slow i think heat will be a concern so how fine of a cut could I make?

John

[ArtF]

Hi John:

Being a woodworker, Ive never really cut much brass in my router, but I've always found it amazing how
easy it doesa cut. HEat isnt that much an issue, just cut very small passes, and as quick as you can. Better
to cut .01" at a fair speed that .1 at a very slow one. Try some experiments with shallow passes is my advice..
it really has a lot of variables with your system being the major one, depends on its rigidity, so I suspect
with a 50watt spindle, youd be taking very very shallow cuts, I do with my 750Watt..

Art

[John T]

Hi Art,
I had tried in the past to cut brass but always ended up with a broken bit and no gear to show for it.

So, I took you advice and have cut a 1.5 inch escape wheel that is 1/16 inch thick.  The CNC was set up at 100 inches per minute using a carbide 1/16 inch end mill.

The difference this time was that I set the cut per pass at 0.001 inches and it worked.  Even though it took 62 passed to complete it was worth it.  The photo is as it came off the CNC with no burr removal or anything.

A beautiful gear (in my opinion).

Thanks for your help!!

John

[ArtF]

John:

Excellent!, glad it worked out. Thats the thing about low power machines, you really can do amazing things, you just
have to be patient and take very little at a time. Eventually, you do get through.. 
  :)

Art