Hello,
I am a watchmaker and have begun to manufacture several project watches of my own design. I have however ran into difficulty manufacturing one part, the watch dial (face of the watch). The dial needs to be made out of silver, and I have acquired dead soft sterling silver sheet (0.4mm thick) to cut the dials out of. My difficulty is how to cut the dials, and drill the holes out of this sheet. The best idea that I have had so far is to cut them out of the sheet using a CNC router. Ideally I would like to purchase a router so that I can do this myself and have been looking at some affordable Chinese machines, namely the 3040 router. The machine would have to be able to cut the circumference of the dial, drill holes (including two blind holes on the reverse) and cut a recess. Does anyone have experience with these machines? Would they work for cutting silver sheet, or be able to handle my requirements? Or would I be better off having a professional machine these parts for me?
I have included an PDF attachment of my design for reference.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.