Brass watch dials?

[john_g]

Hello,
Would the nomad be suitable for producing brass watch dials? They will be 0.4mm brass cut into 30mm discs. I have attached an example of the detail I am looking for, which was made using a 40w fibre laser.
Any advice is appreciated!
Thanks,
John

[Radiation (Josh)]

The nomad can certainly handle brass without much issue. It’s also quite precise. It may take a bit of time to run a disk, since you have a lot of tiny details there. You’ll need a smaller endmill to get into those finer parts, and those smaller endmills can’t handle as much. The Nomad supports tool changes so you can use a larger bit to hog out most of the material and the smaller bit to get the fine details.

I highly recommend you check out a few of the videos Winston Moy has put out on the carbide 3d channel.

[Julien]

Additional resource to get a feel of the smallest detail you can reasonably get from a Nomad:

[Julien]

And even if it is not fully relevant to your question, check out this wonderful thread on watchmaking on a Shapeoko by master @RichCournoyer. You should be able to draw some conclusions on making parts for watches on the Nomad, which is more precise than the Shapeoko.

[john_g]

Thank you everyone for the replies!

The example I posted above is far more complex than the standard dials I plan on making. If you’re interested, google ‘sandwich dial’ to see what I have in mind.

I am also planning on using other materials such as mokume gane which also sounds like a piece of cake for the nomad.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

For cutting mokume gane please see:

Timascus? Mokume?

I used 9000 RPM, a feed rate of 12.300". The tool I used was Carbide’s #112 with a depth per pass of 0.008". Also chose Brass as my material (even though it was Mokume). To adhere my metal, I used the Blue Machinable Fixturing Wax that Carbide has, although I plan on switching to the White wax when I run out of the blue, because it’s water soluble. For now, I’ve found that soaking my pieces in a Goo Gone solution works great on the small pieces to remove the blue wax residue.