From: "David M. Munro" <munro@...>
*** snip ***
Interestingly, I have some of the same needs in my clockmaking work.
The
beading on clock bezels is the same sort of thing, and the "beads"
almost
touch. I was planning to make a special form cutter, where the cutter
would have an internal radius to machine the raised "hump" It would be
easier to form the cutter if it was a single flute, and with soft metals
(brass in my case) it should work.
The thought of special cutters has crossed my mind. Unfortunately, I've
never needed one and have no idea of how to make one. Got to hit the ole
books to see if I ever learned anything in that area.
You could also machine a negative form, making the rivit heads with a
ball
mill, using it as a form for a lost wax pattern. The old clockmakers
had
special form knurls, not only for beads, but for crosshatching, acanthus
leaves, ad infinitum, which were rolled onto a soft cast blank.
Actually, I have a small arbor press and punch set with a single axis
table the will emboss rivets into thin sheets of plastic or brass. I've
used it before, but the table is garbage. I need to rebuild it with a
real x-y table to accurately emboss a rivet pattern. Thought about using
a solenoid and two steppers to automate this one, but that's a different
story ;-) The ball mill and reverse pattern does seem to be the best
suggestion so far.
The rivet is only an example of the the relative sizes of the detail I
need. I did think of chemical milling as a possibility, but wanted to see
if there's a CNC solution first.
Pat
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