[SvenTSH]

Hi

Our research group have rather recently acquired a 5 axis CNC and we are now working on incorporating it into our research projects. We have a lot of engineers, but no machinists, so we are trying to figure out what is possible and what is not.

We have been using ball nose mills to indent substrates. All ball nose tools I have seen so far end in a hemisphere (except for a few 270 degree tool tips). What we like to have is a ball nose tool with a radius-of-curvature quite a bit larger than the tool cutting radius. For example a 0.4 mm diameter (0.2 mm radius) tool ending in a cutting radius-of-curvature of 0.6 mm. So instead of a hemisphere you would end up with a circle sector encompassing about 40 deg (or, if you want, a circle segment cut at the 0.4 mm chord attached to the end of a 0.4 mm tool) from a 1.2 mm in diameter sphere.

Have you seen anything like this? Would it be feasible to make and use?

We obviously assume that it would have to be custom made. Any ideas on companies that might be interested in doing such a thing?

[SvenTSH]

So I will partially answer my own question.

Continued search led me to the 'circle segment' tools by Emuge-Franken. One cutter type of those is the 'lens shaped' tools. These seems to be exactly what I was asking for, except that they put the lower limit of radius-of-curvature at 6mm. A pdf can be found here: http://www.emuge.co/sites/default/fi...ills_KSF_1.pdf

Deeming from the promo material it seems like this is marketed as a novelty, but if anyone know of a company doing anything similar, I would be very happy to know.