[hgaryh1]

I'm wondering if this is even possible in a small machine at a reasonable price.....

I'm looking to find a CNC Router that can work with Mastercam software to produce somewhat decent images in cast iron such as on the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

[awerby]

No, there's no router that will do an effective job at routing out pans from billets of cast iron - not even an expensive one. If you want to use one to help you make items in cast iron, create patterns in wood that you can send out to a sand-casting shop; they will be able to produce all the pans you want much more efficiently that even a full-sized mill can.

[hgaryh1]

I'm thinking I wasn't clear on my question. I'm not looking to make a cast iron skillet from a block of cast iron, I'm looking to machine an image....maybe .030 deep max on existing cast iron skillets. Maybe this still isn't feasibly possible. Thank you.

[awerby]

It's still not going to work well. The spindle on a router typically goes at about 24,000 RPM. For cutting cast iron with a smallish tool, you want it to spin about a tenth that fast, but those spindles won't slow down that much. It would also take a long time to do. If this is what you really want to accomplish, I'd suggest abrasive blasting, using a rubber stencil for your artwork. That would cost less to set up, and go much faster.

[dharmic]

I'd suggest otherwise - a 3mm endmill coated in TiAlN and made of solid carbide will happily run at 17,000RPM.

Not going to be quick though, max feed rate of 450mm/min and only a 0.25mm DOC (ie you'd need three passes).

Still, any half decent router should be able to cope with that if you're patient.

[hgaryh1]

How about with a small CNC Bridgeport type mill? If so, any recommendations for $6000 to $7000 tops?

[hanermo]

It is a trivial job as engraving, on any cnc router.

If you don´t have enough rpm on the router, buy a cheap chinese high speed spindle, water cooled, around 1 hp, with vfd.
Run == 1 mm - 0.5 mm end mill at 10-25.000 rpm.

Will work fine.
Engraving loads with tiny end mills are less than 1 kgf in push force.

The maybe 0.6 mm total depth suggested might be maybe less, maybe 0.2 mm, and could well run at one pass with 0.5 mm end mill, certainly with 1 mm.

[tinalongping1]

I'm wondering if this is even possible in a small machine at a reasonable price.....

I'm looking to find a CNC Router that can work with Mastercam software to produce somewhat decent images in cast iron such as on the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

I have a machine can do iron. but it is very big and very expensive. it is 1300*2500mm