Milling metals, even aluminum, but especially ferrous metals is expecting a lot from the Nomad 3. It’s lack of rigidity and lack of the vibration/chatter dampening qualities of cast iron makes it marginally suited for milling afore mentioned metals. I will be using mine for engraving pistols and making custom wooden pistol grip panels.
The Nomad can mill metals if you keep your expectations in check.
The Nomad 3 in particular should be fantastic for milling small workpieces, stuff like coins, medals, stamps or branding irons. You could, for example, use it to mill out a brass inlay to embed in a pistol grip.
If you expect to hog out large mechanical parts with it (like I did), you’ll be disappointed though for sure. It can do it but it takes forever and it lacks such exotic features as chip evacuation or any easy way of cleaning chips up later.
2 Likes
Alright Carbid3D you have a wishlist for Nomad 4 starting.
Cast iron isn’t really needed when cutting forces should rarely exceed to 10 pounds on a machine like this.
Sprung antibacklash lead screw nuts can be “:interesting” to tune and run happy. Imo end mill geometry and correct feeds/speeds play a huge part in desktop machining.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.