Early Christmas present

[crueby]

Tis the season for catalog browsing and drooling over tools/machines - this one caught my eye recently and got ordered:

Its a little engraving machine from Proxxon for doing simple nameplates. It uses one of their little MicroMot rotary tools (NOT included in the machine, I already had a couple of them for my wood carving hobby). Also not included are the engraving bits for the rotary tool, they have one 1.0mm and one 0.5mm bit they sell seperately, also the step clamps for holding the workpiece are not included, I am using some I already had. It does come with two sets of the letters/numbers to trace from. Here is a closeup of a row of the letters in the holder, above it that vertical black rod is the stylus on the end of the arm that you trace the letters with - the pantograph arms are hinged at the back to raise the stylus and cutter between letters, lower it and trace the letters to cut.

The stylus has a height adjustment and the whole arm assembly also has one, to allow setting the depth of cut. Takes a little experimentation to learn the right setup - the instructions are very sparse but the machine seems pretty solid given its a small unit for small engraving.
I set up a line of text, and tested it all out on a scrap bit of plywood to see how it works. It has four scaling settings, I did one set of letters per size:

A closeup of the smaller sets, with a finger for scale (I didn't have a penny handy!)


The letters range from about .145" on the smallest setting to .312" on the largest setting - not bad for making model nameplates.
Then I dug out a scrap bit of brass to test it out on metal. All these tests were done with the 1mm cutter, have not tried the 0.5mm one yet - all that looks like different is the size of the flat at the tip - the smaller one has a wider angle to the cutter, so I think it will give more of a V look. The stylus is a little smaller than the width of the grooves in the letters to trace, so I went around each twice, first against the inside then the outside of each letter.

Overall I like it - on brass, the letters could be painted over, then the surface filed or scraped to get the brass back and leave the letters the paint color, which is the look I like the most.

For a small machine, its pretty decent, a fraction of the price of a commercial pantograph engraving machine, fine for the occasional use I'll put it to. Lately the local shops that did custom engraving around me have all gone to the newer laser style ones, which give a result that looks just printed on the brass, no depth. My 3D printer can't do letters this small well. Looks like I'll be making up a few plates for the models from the last several years!

[cnr6400]

Nice piece of equipment! If you need any practice engraving, let me know, I have 5,426 cheap plastic parts bins with 1970's Dymo tape labels. It must be fall, because the labels are falling off the bins like leaves off trees! 

The good news is I have no bins containing "dihydrogen monoxide" or "disestablishmentarianism" or "Dichlorodifluoromethane" 

[crueby]

Nice piece of equipment! If you need any practice engraving, let me know, I have 5,426 cheap plastic parts bins with 1970's Dymo tape labels. It must be fall, because the labels are falling off the bins like leaves off trees! 

The good news is I have no bins containing "dihydrogen monoxide" or "disestablishmentarianism" or "Dichlorodifluoromethane" 

Um, er, I'm out that week. Yeah, that's it!   

[ddmckee54]

I don't know about the "disestablishmentarianism", but I'm PRETTY sure the other two could be abbreviated.

[mklotz]

You forgot...

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant something of little or no value. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili (which sound like four of the seven dwarves, Roman version, but I digress).

As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck –fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and utterly valueless (a verb, floccinaucinihilipilificate, to judge a thing to be valueless, can also be constructed, but hardly anybody ever does). The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”.

I don't know about you guys but, in my shop, a word to describe something that is "totally and utterly valueless" gets more than a little use.

[crueby]

You forgot...

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant something of little or no value. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili (which sound like four of the seven dwarves, Roman version, but I digress).

As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck –fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and utterly valueless (a verb, floccinaucinihilipilificate, to judge a thing to be valueless, can also be constructed, but hardly anybody ever does). The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”.

I don't know about you guys but, in my shop, a word to describe something that is "totally and utterly valueless" gets more than a little use.

I do like the alternate 7-dwarves names. I've heard others like Gassy, Fluffy, Snoopy, Dizzy, Cranky, Donder, Blitzen...   
My word for something completely useless is usually either 'manager' or 'politician'. Or 'Marketing'. Or anything along that vein!   

Wow - we came a long way from an engraver really fast!

[tghs]

I have its great grandfather at work!!!!

[crueby]

Ooh, a real one! Nice!

[mklotz]

I built one that uses Rapidograph stencils (remember those?)

[crueby]

Thats pretty slick! They still make those stencils? I remember using those back in school, a LONG time ago!  Since they come (at least back then) in different fonts and sizes, adjustable scaling on the machine is not that important.

[ShopShoe]

Crueby,

I remember the lettering system under the LeRoy name.

I did a quick google and found lots of sets and individual guides for sale. I think you can find what you want without too much trouble.

I like of the cut letters with ink fill too. Don't like the "printed on the surface" plaques as much, although in a former life I used to make them with a 3M product that could be made photographically.

ShopShoe