How To: Metal Dominoes

Gallery
1

Using Carbide Create and a Soft Jaw fixture these Metal Dominoes cost about $ 35 in materials and a few hours.

**These Make an Awesome Gift! **
Design Files are easily modified, you can use the Carbide Create files below as reference.

I Purchased the 6061 AL bar (.25" x 1.25"x 6ā€™) and 1/8th and 3/16th brass balls from Mcmaster.

Undersize the holes for the Brass Balls .001ā€™-.002" for a press fit. (Hole depth is greater than 1/2 the diameter)

Heres Some Quick Tips:

Engraving to a depth of .010" or greater will allow you to additionally use a buffing wheel on the Dominoes without removing the Paint Marker.
(Wet Sand first, then Paint marker, then Wet sand again, then Buff with a 3m wheel)

I had 3 Carbide Create files open at once, with Center Zero locations.
This way I could run my production out of one machine and setup.

Operation 1 is the (pocket) surfacing with the .125" endmill. (#102) 1/8"
Operation 2 is the Art Engraving, with the .032" endmill (#122) 1/32"
Operation 3 Flip the domino over and run the Numeral Dot value. with the .0625" (#112) 1/.16"

2 up fixture DOMINOES.c2d (11.9 KB)
Domino DOTS.c2d (57.8 KB)
Surfacing OPeration.c2d (723.4 KB)
Domino ART Pattern.c2d (1.4 MB)

Screenshot 2017-03-30 10.55.08.png1123Ɨ742 1.06 MB

Have Fun!
Questions? Let me know below.

22 Likes
2

:open_mouth: i must try this

3 Likes
3

This is a cool project! I came across this via Hackaday.

Iā€™d like to try making these.

I have a couple of question about the soft jaws fixture.

  1. What material were the soft jaws made from?

  2. How did you align the jaws to the vise? Was it necessary to zero the xy home on each domino before machining?

Thanks for posting this info!