Corian Lithopane questions

Projects
1

Ive been reading some of the old posts and instead of posting questions in a few of them and digging them up I figured id start fresh.

  1. Where is the best supplier of .25inch Corian?
  2. Ive seen 1/32" BEM recommended. Is BEM ballnose end mill?
  3. Is this really one of those times I set the dewalt to the highest speed?
  4. Is there a size constraint? I want to do a small ornament.

I think there are a few more im forgetting.

3

Thank you @RobertCanning. Any suggestions on cut settings? Seems counterintuitive that you have to go so slow on such a soft material.

5

Thanks

6

As an example…this one was done when my machine was a stock X-Carve (or pretty close)…

I used a tapered ballnose with a 0.25mm radius tip
Dewalt on speed setting 1.
100 inches per minute
50 inches per minute plunge
8% stepover
Only a finish pass, no roughing pass.
Cut into 1/4" candlestone.

20160315_150054
20160315_1500545312Ă—2988 2.16 MB

20160315_150036
20160315_1500365312Ă—2988 1.35 MB

3 Likes
8

Did you rough out the back of the material first then carve the front?

9

All of the cuts are on the same side.

10

Just like @AllenMassey said…everything is cut from the front. I only do one pass total for these, no roughing pass, no pass to thin it down…just a finishing pass. The tapered ballnsoe bits are nice and durable, so even with a 0.25mm radius tip it is plenty strong enough to go full depth in the candlestone or corian.

1 Like
11

how deep do you cut?

12

I believe the deepest was 0.22" leaving only 0.03" for the brightest areas.

13

Thanks. I’m thinking of trying a smaller bit. How soft is this stuff? Would a 1/16 hold up ?

14

I only use tapered ballnose bits…the 0.25mm radius bit is tiny…almost like a needle. I also use 0.5mm tapered ballnose bits for them…which is also a tiny bit…both are smaller then a 1/16" bit.

15

Oh .25mm. I thought 25mm. Makes more sense.