Today I visited a small home decorations store. There I got the idea-question of engraving stone products, or maybe a bit different, bricks. Just bricks where houses are made off. How awesome would it be to engrave a text like "This house is been build… " or maybe carving just the family name + year with a special stone-carving bit ?
This thread could be a home for newly discovred materials for using the CNC and Laser module ?!
Btw ; Could it be possible to laser engrave a 3D printed woodfill product ?
That’s an innovative idea!
We haven’t tried CNC carving on bricks or laser engraving on a 3D printed woodfill product, but we can give it a try.
Thank you for bringing this up to us! =)
Sandstone or Marlstone (Mergel) should be doable, that is pretty “soft” or brittle. I don’t know if the provided bits are the correct ones, because both have quite some amount of quartz in it.
Woodfill metal- or stonefill PLAs are mostly plastics with some additions. Still is it recommended to use a ruby extruder nozzles if you use stone, metal or carbon filled filaments often, because they are abrasive to normal nozzles.
While I would like to try some of the material filled filaments i would hate to damage my unit trying something so far untested.
Doing the stone carving with the cnc I feel is probably undoable with the Snapmaker. I haven’t seen a cnc stone carver that doesn’t have a water basin to draw from. Cutting stone generates heat plus dust. Far greater than carving wood. I know From etching stone myself (cut granite and a few river stones) it’s not a easy process. Not saying it wouldnt be possible to carve sandstone but I was told in the past that the cnc wasn’t able to engrave soft aluminum by Snapmaker. This makes me really doubt it would handle doing any type of stone carving.
Has anyone tried the CNC head on EDM Graphite Plate/Block? Something like this: http://a.co/bcuO5CM. You could make custom molds for casting silver, gold, aluminum, etc. It seems like the Snapmaker could cut it, I’m was more concerned with the fine dust it would produce causing problems with the machine. May need to work out a shop vacuum attachment…
It all depends on what your stone is made out of. If it’s granite(Calcite) it’s a 6 or 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. Machining granite may be maxing out what the SM2 could do- seeming as though it’s marketed to machine Jade (which is also a 6 on the hardness scale.)
TL:DR I would find out what mineral your river rocks are- and then check those against the Moh’s hardness scale. (Just google “Material Mohs Hardness Scale.”) As a general rule, I have been planning projects that are at or less than 6 on the hardness scale just to be safe -for now
