Vectric Customer

Customer Ricky Bennett (SCANCAD) is using VCW to engrave Stone Memorials on a Newing Hall Pantocut 4E with a Beyerholm & Moe Microstep controller.

Ricky is very happy with the results and commented,

"VCarve Wizard has enabled our memorial department to v carve letters on memorial plaques and headstones in Stone, Brass, Bronze and Wood. "

"We consider it a vital and new ability to CNC machine V cut letters over traditional sandblasting and hand cutting."

Recent memorial projects Ricky has machined using VCW include,

More pictures from Ricky.

These are the first full size memorials I've engraved.

The Software is excellent and I look forward to using it every time. It, of course, is really satisfying to have such first class results, especially off my dear old Pantocut! 21 years old !!

This job has been carved into marble and is used in Ricky's show room to show customers what fonts can be used on the memorial work.

Ricky at SCANCAD has recently VCarved this large 305mm x 305mm x 1000mm long
sandstone block with 100mm high letters.

I'll try to get more pictures and cutting information.

Beautiful work! Thanks for sharing it with us.


What kind of bit will carve stone? Any special router speed?

Hi Tony,
I am very new on carving techniques. I am wondering how hard or easy is to carve stones, let's say marble or other engravables stones, and what king of tooling, setting (RPM, feed, geometry) is needed for that.

Regards,
Luiguicam

I'm sure Ricky Bennet is either using Diamond coated tooling or Carbide.
You can purchase tooling that have a Diamond coating.
I'll see if I can find a few links and post those with the tooling thread.

In memorial_pic2, It appears that he is using a single flute 60° V-bit carbide tool.
In sample1.jpg and sample3.jpg, I think he's using a 30° V-bit of some sort with a flat on the bottom. ( probably a bottom on all of his tooling )
And I'm sure his spindle speed is very low. Probably no higher than 4000 - 5000 RPMS.
I scanned a buisness card and scaled it to about 5.875 inches wide to 3.750 inches in height.
I used a cheap carbide V-bit from Lowes. I think it was a Bosch brand ( I don't know who makes it for them ).

• Feed = .200 per second
• Spindle Speed = 1300 rpm
• Maximum Depth =.1655 inches
• Step Down = .050 inches
• Total Machine Time = 1 hour 14 minutes
• Material = Granite Counter Top
• Finish = Large Text and Graphics painted Blue \ Small Text painted yellow

Hi Luiguicam,

Looks like Don is just about spot on with his summary.

Ricky at Scancad uses carbide cutters and simply runs them at slow feedrates and spindle speeds.
If the stone is very hard he roughs the job out with one cutter leaving around 0.020" (0.5mm) on
the job. Then uses a new sharp cutter to finish machine to depth and size.

A key factor when cutting stone is rigidity, so make sure everything is locked down to minimise
the chance of vibration and deflection.

I hope this helps,

Tony

Tony, Don,
Thanks for the tips. I am going to try them soon.