[meincer]

I would like to experiment with engine turning decoration on small pieces of stainless. I don't have the time or knowledge to do my own programming. It would seem simple to increment X in one direction a small amount, go down for small delay, increment, do it again and then repeat until X length is reached and then increment Y and repeat X increments. A slowly curving pattern would be cool too.

Does anyone here know of a program available to do this?

[meincer]

Maybe most of you don't know what engine turning is. The quickest way to see it is to just Google "engine turning". It is a series of decorative swirls on a flat surface made by a circular mandrel.

[LeeWay]

You could use a series of points in a CAD drawing to establish the location of the swirls. Finding the right tool for the job would be the hard part I think.
You might be able to use something like a facemill with a 3M Scotchbrite pad attached to it. It would have to be durable enough to create the last swirl just as well as the first one though.
Trial and error of course.
It would be simple to do the actual machining of the pattern though.

They may already have tools for such applications, but specialty tools are generally not cost friendly.

[meincer]

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't thought of doing it on a drawing and then using a CAM program to run it, that makes sense. If I was adept at G code I am sure it would be easy to program this from scratch, eliminating the need for a drawing, but alas I am not.

As far as the tooling: I attended a seminar on doing this manually at Cabin Fever Expo last week and this guy used a wooden dowel, tipped with soft leather, and used 280 grit abrasive grease (for aluminum). I have also read from another guy that Cratex round rubber abrasive sticks work well.

[fizzissist]

Maybe most of you don't know what engine turning is.

Pretty presumptive statement around these parts.

Using Mastercam's various options, including nesting in routing, I've come up with some fascinating patterns beyond the simple row/column you'd get with step and repeat.

[Andre' B]

What you are calling "engine turning" most people in my part of the world would call "jeweling".
Engine turning is a phrase we would connect more with "Ornamental turning".
Engine Turning, Jeweling, etc.

[meincer]

re: "Pretty presumptive statement around these parts."

I meant no disrespect and should have worded this differently. It was prompted by a PM from a member who had no idea what engine turning was. I simply wanted to explain more fully......

[LeeWay]

To be honest, I didn't know what engine turning was, but do know what jeweling is. I have seen it nicely done on several hot rod firewalls and dash boards.

[rowbare]

In something like CamBam, you could lay out a grid of points and apply a drilling operation to them. You would then define a custom drilling operation which would lower the spindle, dwell an appropriate time and retract. It might be nice to make a spring loaded head to hold your pad/leather/???. This would allow you to control pressure by increasing the depth you would drill to.

bob

[meincer]

An update on this.

I discovered Python, a free and easy to learn programming language. I came up with a program to do machine turning and it works great! I will post pics soon.

[HorridHenry]

The Victorian Jewelers and Engravers were well known for this on their nick nack boxes or cigarrette cases.

The used some sort of press? a bit like its done on the Lathe with an Knurling tool.
The press had a series of small rollers and the pressure of the press rolled the knurling rollers over the metal.