Hi CNC zoners
Apologies up front, this is a bit of an essay for a first time poster..I've already searched various user groups and forums but essentially what I'm looking to achieve is a little bit different, I think, and in any case I humbly tip my hat to your wiser heads!
I'm from Meridian Sculpture in Melbourne Australia; we do lost wax art castings in bronze, a pretty rare and very old world process. This coming year I've promised myself to properly investigate some modern machining and manufacturing opportunities in the hope of remaining competitive and relevant. 3d printers present an obvious one but I'm in the near term more enamoured by CNC options.
We've zero CNC capability at the moment and only fledgling CAD skills but ultimately what I'd like to do, among other things, is achieve high quality high resolution machinable wax parts for direct casting to bronze. Surface fidelity and accuracy is paramount for us and that's where the size, quality, time and cost trade off for external 3d printed wax or plastic parts still isn't quite good enough, actually a long way off, at least in Australia.
So Ive been investigating compact routers like the Shopbot desktops and Sharks etc and of course these aren't 3d but we see an opportunity to create reliefs and plaques and other flatter 2.5d parts - think name plaques found with a large public sculpture - that are superior in choice and finish to that supplied by the single operator in that market locally. This company supply bronze cast plaques but they can't/wont do engraved patterns and always have a rough sand cast like appearance as the flat background to raised lettering, symbols or imagery. We are often re-finishing their product and our clients often ask for a humble variation they can't achieve.
So to get to the point..assuming the required software skills, I'm wondering whether a machine like the Shopbot desktop (or max) or indeed other machines are up to reliably producing high fidelity 2.5d parts from wax (sheets) that might for example have lettering and patterns either engraved OR low relief embossed? Also when carving wax would a router be sufficient or would a spindle be smarter as a business investment? I suspect so..
My research so far seem to show good availability of machinable waxes here, that tool life is good with such material, and that the desktop's step precision is reasonably 'pro' at 0.006mm..but please educate me, I know there's many other factors when considering accuracy. There are cheaper machines than the Shopbot but, inexperienced as we are, we can't afford to muck around with the likely sloppy build of the cheaper enthusiast machines and if we do this we need to do it well.
Love it if you CNC pros could de-bunk any of my assumptions or provide advice, particularly if you've experience in tooling wax parts.
Thanks again for your time
Gareth.