Making corian plaques using a cnc router: questions?

[Scott Perry]

I am doing a bid for plaques out of corian. They will be 9x11 routed edge and mainly text (17 point AKA Posse). I would appreciate it if any of you cnc gurus could give me an approximate run time for just one and maybe a sheet of them.

I believe I could get about 21 plaques per 96x32 sheet.

Is it faster to do the text on the router or laser? (22 minutes at 30 watts)

I know this takes me about 20 minutes by hand to do one.(Cut to size and router edges. Hope to get faster)

I am looking to dive into the CNC router market (stinger II).

Thanks
Scott

[Paul Grothouse]

A drawing would be nice, how much text? What kind of surface finish are you after? How thick the corian that has to be cutout? Is the machining double sided? Engraving text on a CNC can be significantly faster than a Laser (type of CNC counts here to), but the resolution is generally much less without several tool changes. It's easy enough to estimate with a proper CAM package like MasterCam or AlphaCam, I don't know to much about Aspire which most people on the forum use. Plus if you have a large enough CNC you can nest all the parts into one shot, no cutting down or loading a few into the laser at a time. Usually the Cam software will do this for you.

Personally if it was me and it was my first job I would have an outside house run it before I dove into the water. They can help you work out all the tooling and setups. God knows there is a lot to learn with a CNC in the first place, to have the pressure of performance doesn't help.

[Steve Ryan]

Corian? 32 x 96 sheet may be a problem. Most colors come only in 30" widths and most distributors will only sell 30 x 145 sheets or half sheets.

[Scott Perry]

Good questions to my questions!
The plaque is 9x11, all text 17 point double space (8.5 x 6.5 space on plaque), can be a font that the router could easily do, nice roman ogee edge, keyed on back for hanging.
Corian sheet is 30 x 145, good to know, so if the router can do a 4' x 8' sheet (that would be 30 x 96, 2/3 of a full sheet) I could get 36 plaques per sheet, right?

I am looking for the time it takes to do one or a sheet of plaques (whatever size your router is)?

I would have to farm this out at first, but I do plan to buy a router later on.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Routing is much faster than laser for simple text. Lasering is slow, especially if you want any depth. If it takes 22 minutes on your laser (which I have a feeling you aren't getting deep enough) it should take about 5-7 minutes on a router.

Hints:
Your depth should typically be between .01" to .03".
Scrape the paint off with a razor blade then wet sand with high grit sand paper.
Let the paint fully cure (it's very very very annoying when the dust settles on the paint).

[Scott Perry]

I did find out if I set the laser to 20 speed/1000 dpi/100 power-- I get good depth and it shortened the time to 18 minutes. The 22 minutes includeded 2 passes at 20/600/100.

Routing is much faster than laser for simple text. Lasering is slow, especially if you want any depth. If it takes 22 minutes on your laser (which I have a feeling you aren't getting deep enough) it should take about 5-7 minutes on a router.

Hints:
Your depth should typically be between .01" to .03".
Scrape the paint off with a razor blade then wet sand with high grit sand paper.
Let the paint fully cure (it's very very very annoying when the dust settles on the paint).

[Mick A Martin]

Good questions to my questions!
The plaque is 9x11, all text 17 point double space (8.5 x 6.5 space on plaque), can be a font that the router could easily do, nice roman ogee edge, keyed on back for hanging.
Corian sheet is 30 x 145, good to know, so if the router can do a 4' x 8' sheet (that would be 30 x 96, 2/3 of a full sheet) I could get 36 plaques per sheet, right?

I am looking for the time it takes to do one or a sheet of plaques (whatever size your router is)?

I would have to farm this out at first, but I do plan to buy a router later on.

Hi Scott,

Do you intend to V-Carve the text, pocket the text (straight edges) or remove the background leaving the text protruded?
I would do the roman ogee edge with a hand held router must faster and less waste between plaques.

Mick

[Jerome Stanek]

What thickness corian are you talking. 6 mil comes in different sizes than 13 mil I can get 6 mil or 1/4 inch in 4 X 8 sheets.

[Scott Perry]

Mick,

I haven't seen the difference between the V-Carve and the Pocket. Whichever one looks the best painted will work. Maybe later on the reversed engraving.

Is there a routed edge that the cnc will do better, faster and less waste than by hand?

Scott

Hi Scott,

Do you intend to V-Carve the text, pocket the text (straight edges) or remove the background leaving the text protruded?
I would do the roman ogee edge with a hand held router must faster and less waste between plaques.

Mick

[Mick A Martin]

Mick,

I haven't seen the difference between the V-Carve and the Pocket. Whichever one looks the best painted will work. Maybe later on the reversed engraving.

Is there a routed edge that the cnc will do better, faster and less waste than by hand?

Scott

Scott,

The fastest way to make a Corian sign is to V-Carve it, Paint fill the whole project with a foam brush. I dab plenty of paint in the grooves and letters, after the paint dries I scrape the excess off of the surface with a razor blade on a long handle which removes almost all of the paint. I then run my randon orbital sander over the surface of the sign. This technique is very fast and easy, no masking is required. I use a hand router and a Roman ogee bit with a bearing around the edge of the sign.

I design my 6" x 8' sign plaque then copy and paste onto a 30" x 96"' (I cut a full sheet to match my CNC size) - 1/2 thick. I use a 60 degree V-Bit to do me text, I then use a 1/4" straight end mill using tabs (in Aspire) to do the outer profile cut, I average 40 / 45 sign plaques per sheet, depending on my design. I use a jig saw to remove the plaques from the sheet, I have a dedicated hand held router with a flush trim bit to remove the tabs (some people use a disk sander) I then use another dedicated hand held router with a Roman Ogee bit to do the profile around the edge.

Depending on how much text you want and the speeds and feed rate of your CNC, I am able to cut 40 plaques in under 2 hours (I have never timed it) I use Ace hardware paint because I dries very fast in about 20 minutes. So the time you have finished painting you last one you can clean your first one. The Roman Ogee takes less than 2 minutes per sign.

I hope this information helps you.

Mick

[Scott Perry]

Thanks Mick,

That helped a whole lot. I did look at what V-Carved text. It looks great. Now I have a good idea of what to expect. Do you mind telling me what you would charge for the 6x8 plaque (text only)?

[Mick A Martin]

Thanks Mick,

That helped a whole lot. I did look at what V-Carved text. It looks great. Now I have a good idea of what to expect. Do you mind telling me what you would charge for the 6x8 plaque (text only)?

Scott I sent you a PM

[GVJeeper]

Does anyone know what glue to use to glue two corian pieces together .... to increase the thickness?

[Keith Outten]

Christy,

When you need thicker Corian for CNC projects it is best to use color matched Dupont Adhesive.

BTW, please send me a PM so we can adjust your username.
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