Nomad for gift shop owner?!

Hi Everyone,

I’m starting a wax sealing stamp and wedding’s favors shop.
So I mostly will engrave on brass and wood maybe acrylic too.
I’m going to show you some of the finishing results and I want you to advice me with the right end mill to achieve that work.

  1. Wax sealing stamp – tiny details-
  2. Embosser stamp
  3. Clear Polymer Stamp
  4. Plywood

Also I would appreciate any advice for buying additional must have accessories. Like a Low Profile Vise or a Threaded Table?
And is it a noisy machine? I live in second floor flat, will it bother my neighbors?
Just to let you know, I have 0 experiences in CNC and milling machine, is nomad right for me or am I taking a risky move? To be honest I’m very nervous :confused:

Thank you for your time.

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The Nomad was designed for folks like you!

The Low Profile Vise is great for holding small blocks such as our 2x3" Synthetic Wood (Qty 8) - Carbide 3D — that’s also useful for making sacrificial jaws for holding complex parts on secondary operations and so forth.

The Threaded Table is great for clamping arbitrary things in place which aren’t suited to being held on the MDF wasteboard — I believe that it would be well-suited to the sort of work you are planning on doing — I used it for a similar project:

The Nomad is wonderfully quiet — I use mine in our basement, directly beneath my daughter’s bedroom — like my wife, she’s a light sleeper, but never notices when I’m using the machine.

The software is pretty straight-forward:

and we have a standing offer — if you have difficulties setting up a task or project, drop us a line at support@carbide3d.com and we’ll work up a step-by-step tutorial on how to do it.

For endmills please see: Carbide 3D Tooling Guide - Carbide 3D

I was brand stinkin new to CNC just Jan/Feb this year and purchased my Nomad. The Nomad is pretty well set up to take out of the box and start playing. Since then I have made some pretty neat and very tiny things.

I personally think it’s a little noisy, or maybe my garage-to-house walls are thin. The volume definitely increased when I cut brass too. But, maybe my feeds and speeds were off.
That being said, my wife and son have no problems sleeping either when my Nomad is working.

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To quiet my machine it is:

  • placed on a yoga mat
  • which is on a sandwich of glued together pegboard
  • which is on some rubber isolating dampers
  • which is on a table which isn’t allowed to touch the walls
  • and which has rubber cups under each leg on top of carpet (it’s a finished basement)
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Hi William,
Thank you for your fast reply.
everything sound good for me and I feel more excited than before.
Now about the end mills I have seen this link before but to be honest still not sure which one suits me better!
I feel .032” Square End, can be a good choice what do you think?

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For endmills, remember, they’re consumables — for any endmill you use you’ll want at least 3:

  • one for roughing / clearing / through cuts
  • one for finishing / detail work
  • one spare

(If the first becomes dull or broken, then the second is relegated to roughing, the spare is moved to finishing and you purchase more)

You really want an assortment, something like:

(From: http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=6921&p=64848#p64848 )

  • five 2-flute 1/8" straight endmills (such as the #102 endmills from Carbide 3D
  • three 2-flute 1/8" ball end endmills (such as the #101 .125" Ball Cutters from Carbide 3D)
  • three smaller straight endmills (say 2 mm or so) (such as the #112 0.0625" endmills from Carbide 3D)
  • V-carving bits (say 30 and 60 degrees)

I’d suggest also getting three ball-nosed 0.0625" endmills for really fine detailing.

The v-bits @WillAdams mentioned would be for fine lettering.

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Thank you all for helping.

@WillAdams I didn’t find V-carving bits (30 and 60 degrees’) I just found 60 and 90! is that right?

At the Carbide 3D shop? Yes. I bought my tiny 30 and 60 degree endmills from drillman1 off eBay — I think I added them to the recommendations at: https://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Endmills#Specific_Bit_and_Brand_Recommendations

We do have two small V bits intended for PCBs in our shop:

https://shop.carbide3d.com/collections/cutters/pcb

#501 and #502 — they have rounded tips though, so wouldn’t make crisp corners / points, and you’d need to use a feeler gauge to make up for the thickness lost in the cutting due to the rounded tip — at least in theory, if one can find one which matches that thickness and could be added to the tool length sensor reliably (I may be over-thinking this).