Cutting and engraving soft metals

Metals present a similar challenge to cutting hardwoods. Your endmill has to go through stronger material with the added problem that the metal-on-metal contact can generate lots of heat (you will generate heat with hardwood too, but more so with metal). When you cut metal, you can use air assist to keep your bit cool or keep spreading lubricant on your workpiece. Either way, if you thought cutting wood created a mess, cutting metal creates an even bigger mess. This is why I use a 3018 with a dust shoe hooked up to my shop vacuum whenever I am cutting metal. The 3018 is not really suited to cut large pieces of metal, but you can cut small parts so long as you go slow and make enough passes. For my purposes here, I am cutting a part to replace a plastic part on BumbleBee. The larger BumbleBee is meant to machine larger parts, but because some of its critical parts are made of plastic, it can’t really handle metal. However, I can have the 3018...