Relief carving in alum or brass with the Pro Plus

[jcbrotz]

I am trying to figure out if my pro plus will self destruct if I attempt a relief carving in aluminum or brass. My mom wants me to do the grave markers for my dads headstone and I would like to do it but am unsure of the can of worms I will be opening. I am not adverse to upgrades to make this happen. I will be spending some coin on new software to facilitate this at any rate so??

[SPH01]

Give us an idea of what you will be carving? I engrave on aluminum from time to time with no issues and have even cut out small parts from aluminum.

[jcbrotz]

I will be carving a plaque for dads headstone. Names and a pic of mom and him. The dates will be on separate pieces to facilitate easier matching of moms dates hopefully a long way down the road. I will at least need to buy the photo carving software, but am wondering if the colt is up to par or if I can/should get a spindle to fit it and also if the stepper motors will enjoy the process very much.

Thanks Charlie

[SPH01]

Any reason you want metal vs Corian? You would have to clear coat the brass or aluminum. Corian carves like wood and would last a long time.
search Corian in the forum and I think you will like the results a lot more. You can put date cutouts into the corian and add brass plaques as needed.
Let us know what we can do to help, I have photo carve software it the learning curve is pretty easy. Go to Vectrics web site and there are a lot of info on photo carvings.
Steve

[asever]

I have done some carving in both brass and aluminum using a Pro plus (I have cut several airplane instrument panels out with 3d lettering etc). While it is not ideal it does the job, you just have to keep a few things in mind. The load on the machine (both the router and shark) is going to be dependent a number of different factors. Most metal milling machines use coolant to keep the tool cool and to allow the cutter to work efficiently without the cutting face of the bit heating up and gumming up the cutter.I found by adjusting the feed rates and cutter rpms that I could get clean machining on both aluminum and brass. Basically the shark needs slow feed rates and the router needs reasonably high rpms. With that said...I hate doing it on my machine. Metal chips go everywhere (I am surprised I did not short my little Colt router out) ... it just is not designed for metal.

My $.02.

Andy