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At my first Camp Shopbot there was discussion about working with marble and limestone. Thirteen years later I'm still enjoying these types of projects.
Roughing pass with a 1/2" ballnose bit at 15% stepover.
Finish pass with a 1/8" ballnose at 7% stepover.
The carving is about 12 inches tall and about 0.4" deep
That is super cool
Nice job Randall. I have carved marble but the bit broke when it hit a hard vein of something. Limestone looks nice. Did you just use a regular carbide bit? Anything special to keep the abrasive dust out of your spindle?
Yes. Normally I'd just use my dull bits from woodworking. However, I didn't have any and I didn't want to use a brand new tapered long reach 1/8" on stone.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobmoore
I had an 8 pack of bits that I bought for $10. Half of those so far broke just while putting them in the collet, but this one survived and worked reasonably well.
My spindle has a pressurized case since it is used with an ATC.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobmoore
NICE Randall! :)
Is that one your neighbor's pavers (inspected carefully), or did you visit a stone supplier so you didn't smoke another carbide bit?
You didn't always have one of Gary's "Dream Machines", did the dust from Marble ever cause problems on any of your old machine's rails/bearings/spindle?
Desktop with HSD spindle here with the fan as part of the spindle(if spindle going,fan is going same rpm).
Only carved native Slate(nice and dust never rose at 14K) and Iceland Spar(not so nice and microchips flew--Very defined brittle cleavage lines) so far.
Did the dust pretty much sit there while carving, or blow around a bit.
Is it the same with Marble?
Looks like you're having fun:)
scott
I went to a nearby stone wholesaler to see if they had remnants or cutoffs. They don't do any fabrication, but they directed me to an industrial park about a half mile aware where there are a dozen stone fabbers. I walked up to one and asked if they had smaller pieces they would sell me. I selected two pieces , one about 14x17 and the other about 15x21. Both were were 20mm thick. He said I could have them for free. I'll bring them the Seahorse this week to say thank you (plus to demonstrate what I can do in case this Silicon Valley gig doesn't work out.Quote:
Originally Posted by scottp55
My first machine was a PRT Alpha with a Porter Cable router. In addition to the dust foot I also held a shop vac hose near the bit. We got about 3 years out of that router before we had to replace the bearings. We seldom ran the router above 16K RPM. The router did tend to bog down on deeper cuts with larger diameter bits, so for stone carving we kept the feed rate down around 1 IPS. I don't hear the spindle bog down.Quote:
did the dust from Marble ever cause problems on any of your old machine's rails/bearings/spindle?
->Link to YouTube video
> Did the dust pretty much sit there while carving, or blow around a bit.
The router blew it around a lot.
> Is it the same with Marble?
Yes
Looks like you're having fun:)
scott[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the answers and the vid Randall!
Gives me a better idea of what to expect.
I'd probably just be doing VCarving using Drillman1's .125" $4 bits on my marble tiles for trials.
I'll watch for spindle dust on a small test, as the 1hp HSD is considered a throw away:(
Hope the stone fabbers like it and toss some work your way:)
Thanks again!
scott
Another limestone piece: 15.5x22
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