Most women love diamonds....

[flyinasian016]

Ohhhh....Cant wait for my grips!

[FlameboyC11]

For clarity, when I meant setup I meant what mill. Look forward to seeing pics!

[vf-xx]

I thought those were test grips to give the mill a try. I figured her final product would be milled aluminum panels like what RogueFactor did to his vert frame.

Well I was rummaging through a set of sample materials that my dad got in recently. In it he had some Machineable wax that is common to use as molds because it also happens to be self releasing. It's also a very distinctive blue color.

What's shown ing the picture looks near identical to what my Dad has. So I'm guessing those are molds, but I may be wrong.

Edit* Looking closer those do look like positives.....

[CoolHand]

They are machined wax positives (masters) to be used for making rubber molds.

She has already tried just machining the negatives into foam, but it did not give the results she was looking for. The wax would work fine, but only for one or two grips (wear from demolding gets to be too much after that).

Guess who the vert panels are for?

[The Frymarker]

Hey guys well,

Here is the setup it is a Roland MDX 20 the bigger of the two cost is about $4800 in change with tax, tools for it are $50 a piece and I can't find them any where else but Roland.

The machine is currently running off of the software that came with it 3d engrave and Modela. I plan on taking classes in the fall for Rhino software at RISD.

I'm very glad I recieved the MDX20 because if I had purchased the smaller one, MDX15, it doesn't have the clearance for the lager type grips like the vert. The bed would have been too small.


Traxer aluminum grips, actually I am not going to carve any aluminum with the mill, I broke 2 bits already carving different materials and wax seems to put less wear and tear on the spindel and tool. I will be casting pewter grips in the future though.


I can take any dxf file that is given to me.




And yes those are the new grips for Logic frames

[TraXeR]

That is very cool Heather, it's so tiny... you can make grips in your bedroom, kitchen table, bathroom, lol! I half expected it to be the size of a car. :o .

Anyways, I will still want to get the grips, dont worry. But now that you have an actual mill, and not done by hand, are you able to make raised parts in the mold, or slightly deep cut outs in it? That would feel so cool to have a spider web deigns 'raisied' out of the grip.

Just thoughts. Btw, how much are you charging now for grips?

[vf-xx]

Woot! I was right about the wax!! yay. I thought it was designed to hold up for longer than that Coolhand but I've never used it either.

That is much smaller than I expected, but looks good. Actually that looks like it's designed for much smaller, more precision work than the machines I was working on last semester.

Question: Does it have a cooling sytem in it? I couldn't tell. If it doesn't then that could explain your problems with milling alluminum. Also how long are the flutes on the tools?

While most of the work I did manually with a standard vertical mill, I did get to run some parts through our school's Haas VF-3 Vertical Machining Center. That was a lot of fun.

[The Frymarker]

Yes it is pretty small, great for grips and jewelry! I guess that's where the diamonds come in

I can take it to bed with me, hehe however I don't think hubby wouldn't like that too much, he already thinks I spend waaaay to much time thinking about grips!


The price of the grips that I make regularly won't change, if you want your own custom carved grip, well depending on the design and the time spent the price will vary from job to job.

I may make a spider web grip, I made one in the past, but now that I have the mill the design will look much cleaner, but it depends on how many ppeople are willing to buy that design.

Spiderman 2 is coming out so I may just make one, we'll see.

As far as a cooling system, I think I could use a lubricant to cut with and a different type of tool with the roughing burs on it, I have seen it cut brass, so it will do it, I just don't want to put that kind of strain on it.

The tool itself is 1/8 dia. 1/8 cut 3 flute and the cutting length is an inch overall length is 3 inches, which make it hard to find the right tool to fit it. The tools I broke which were to in one shot were the tools I used for the embossing and engraving which were 1/32, all the rest of the specs. the same.

I have tried smaller lengths and they just fell out of the chuck.

It also has a scanner that you replace the cutting motor and add the scanning motor and it scans objects 3d.

Yes I love it, it is a blast!

[vf-xx]

Ahhh yeah that's a good bit smaller than what I'm used to. The machinist at school who was helping me wouldn't let me use anything smaller than a 1/4 in mill.

If you decide to give milling aluminum another shot I'd reccomend using plenty of lubricant, a high RPM and a slower translation speed.

But most of all: Hey have fun!!!!

[The Frymarker]

Yes it is small.


Maybe down the line I'll cut aluminum. Oh yeah I have a blast....even when I totally screw up. I just laugh and say....well I'm learning!

[TraXeR]

Frymarker, instead of sending you a *.dxf file, could you send me a side, top and bottom look of a vert and 45 grip that I can use a template to make a desgnon, and you can possibly use that? I can't use 3D Modelers for the life of me, but I can show you exactly what I want doing this.

Im aware this will/could be very costly for my situation, but I'm not worried at all.

[The Frymarker]

Actually email me and I'll send you the template that I use and I'll explain how to use it, it is in bmp form. No 3d software needed I'll just imported into 3d.

[afrankart]

How on earth did you break a cutter in wax? You need to cut some tool steel in that lil' puppy.

[The Frymarker]

I didn't break it cutting wax, I broke a 1/32 tool, cutting a hard piece of wood, then I decided to cut wax because it is softer.

[Duke Henry]

You know, even though my Emag will soon be up for sale, I did vow to order grips from Heather a LONG time ago - so I must ask: can you possibly make panel grips for LCD Matrix's? They may be similar to the Emag panel grips, I haven't put the two together...

Thought I would ask...