Hey G'day people,

A few days ago a mate of mine presented me with some aluminium strips, 20 x 180 x 3mm to carve some information on them. I thought etching (easy) but he wanted them about .8mm deep. So not having worked with aluminium before I've come across some issues.

I have a few bits that do the aluminium ok, some vbits which seem to work fine as well.

But..

I'm really finding it difficult to find the right Fonts that would look nice carved into aluminium. I've tried doing profile cuts for the single line Fonts and meh they don't look great. I've done some fonts as pockets, but the letters are too big and you can't fit much on the plate then.

One issue I'm having is the top of the plate the metal seems to bur Speed I'm using ATM is 16000 rpm 20 mm sec feed, is that ok too fast or too slow?

The V bits I have are ok for wood but they don't seem to work in the same way on the aluminium, in timber I get a nice V shaped channel on letters but in the aluminium it looks more like a pocket wood no V.

The smallest V bit I have is .75 radius, I'm thinking that;s too big?

Is there maybe a particular tool I should buy that is designed for aluminium specifically? or am I just going about it the wrong way.

Any suggestions on the type of fonts I should be looking at suitable for V carving? or is V carving the wrong way of going about it.

Any pointers gratefully received. I've looked across quite a few youtubes but most seem to etch rather than carve letters.


Cheers,
Steve