engraving small num,bers and letters

[movillermv]

what is your go to engraving tool for small numbers and letters smaller than 2mm on hardened steel ? 

[nickbe10]

I use center drills for all engraving, form Aluminium to hardened tool steel. Size of CD depends on size of letters.

Stronger and cheaper than most engraving tools.....

[jeff]

We really don't engrave hard materials, I think the hardest we do is around 45Rc or so.

But these are my go-to tools. Nice and crisp @ .004" deep 

http://www.lakeshorecarbide.com/highperformanceengravingendmills.aspx

 

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

http://www.harveytool.com/cat/Engraving-Cutters/Specialty-Profiles/Browse-Our-Products_195.aspx

 

[#Rekd™]

I have always wanted to try these.

http://nine9.jic-tools.com.tw/engraving-tool-60.html

[Rstewart]

.04"carbide ball endmill always works great for me.

[htm01]

do .03-.06 all the time with 1/32 ball

[movillermv]

thanks for the help I'm going to try to 20 degree Harvey seems like it will make a nice crisp line , I only need to go .05 to .08 mm deep so shouldn't be a issue . I have some 1/32 balls in stock may try a couple out with those as well.  

 

[CEMENTHEAD]

UOS we almost always use 3/64 carbide ball endmills at .005-.015 deep (looks lovely).

[Goldorak]

15 hours ago, #Rekd™ said:

I have always wanted to try these.

http://nine9.jic-tools.com.tw/engraving-tool-60.html

we use them and they work like a charm if you dont engrave more than .01 deep 

 

we also own an SIC-MARKING Dot pen engraving machine, it's like 500x faster than a CNC 

https://www.sic-marking.com/e10-c153-dot-peen-marking-machine

[pullo]

1mm  ball end .  A depth of just 0.03 mm gives you readable text .  0.06 mm deep is  good for most applications ( matrix calendars ,  recycle markings ). The main reason for it's use 

is because it's the  smallest ball end I have permanently in my tool magazine of 24 pcs...

 

Gracjan 

[Metallic]

On 4/26/2018 at 6:53 PM, #Rekd™ said:

I have always wanted to try these.

http://nine9.jic-tools.com.tw/engraving-tool-60.html

I use those and they are great, I also like the ingersoll version quite a bit. For small letters though, carbide center drills do quite well. Id like to get a few tiny ball EMs to experiment with

[Grimes]

I use #2 carbide center drill myself, if it needs to look good. Never tried one of the nine9 ones, boss probably would wanna pay for it.

[Redfire427]

.015 Ball end mill here.

Carmen

 

[Grimes]

Lots using ball nose, I'm gonna have to test one out next week.

[Leon82]

1/32 ball for most

1/64 for very small 

[Tinyfxds]

We used Harvey engraving tools for some of our hardened blocks but we also used 1/32 ball mills.  Most of the stuff we engraved only had to be legible so .005" - .010" was the deepest we went.  Some of our customers had really strict "tolerances" on their logo so that's when we went with the Harvey tools.