As I was making some elaborate 5 1/2" coasters for someone, each one had a full run-time of about 3 hours (I made 4 of them). I couldn’t stand the thought of that kind of wear & tear (hammering the z axis that long) on my primo precision machine, so I decided to get a “3018” machine to take care of the non-precision stuff like coasters. I got a version sold by mysweety on Amazon. This $318 machine is actually pretty nice. I was impressed with the machine overall, although I haven’t run a job on it yet (just dry-run). It’s obviously no precision/quality match to the Onefinity but my gut impression is that it’s a notch above a base X-Carve, although much smaller than either.
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Hey Bill, what material are your coasters, any pictures of the final product? You’ve got me curious with your run times and concern for the z.
Hey Matt, I use a couple different types of vinyl flooring. I started out using Smartcore Pro from Lowe’s (1/4" thick with padded back), but since have started using 1/8" self-stick vinyl & backing it with cork backing I got from Amazon. The gun coaster is the one with the tremendous run-time, the others vary. Coasters are very enjoyable to make, and don’t require any finishing other than I spray them with clear polyurethane to bring out the core color. Here’s a few examples of what I’ve made. The gun coaster is 5.5", the Flint coaster is 8", and all others are 3.75". The gun coaster & North Valley coasters are made with the thinner self-stick flooring, all others are from the thicker Smartcore flooring. The job running on the Onefinity is a new coaster fixture for the 3018 that will allow me to run 3.75" or 5.75" coasters. I have other fixtures that allow me to do up to 6 at a time.
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Hey Matt, are you near Flint? I am in Flushing
Don’t know about Matt, but I was born in Flint & lived all around the area but not recently. I lived in Fenton, Birch Run, Grand Blanc, Clarkston, Waterford (and a few others, lol). I was in Niles (SW corner) for a few years, then moved to Phoenix last year.
That’s very neat work! I love the detail. I understand now, the run time, and not wanting to tie up your main mill.
The material choice is interesting too, I would have never thought to ever consider flooring for milling. But thinking about your product and the application, it makes perfect sense. and even @ $5/sq ft which is on the high side for flooring, it’s pennies when you can manage 4 coasters/sq ft.\
I’m slightly more north, but much more east than Flint, lol. St. John’s, Newfoundland.
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Some of them are definitely a long run time, but for me it’s got more to do with the extreme wear & tear, especially on the Z axis. Running 12+ hours within the same 2mm stroke travel (1mm depth of cut + 1mm retract height) of the Z axis with basically a continuous hammering action raising/lowering the Z axis. For the income realized from coasters, I’d much rather delegate that work to a $300 machine and save the 1F for stuff that matters.
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Love me some Vernor’s. I used to live in Livonia when I was an adolescent 7-9th grade…Great memories spending more time with Grandparents, eating at Bates burgers… Man those times were great…
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Bates! Lol, around 1994-ish I worked at Novi Industries in Novi. There was a Bates on the corner of Novi Rd. & Grand River. On occasion I rode to work with a friend of mine. If we rolled up to that light & caught it red, I would have enough time to jump out of the car & run in to grab a cup of coffee, then make it back to the car before the light turned! Great times.
Here’s another one you may enjoy, a copy of the iconic Woodward sign @ the 8 Mile split.
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If I remember correctly, we were just a bit south of 5 Mile… Road was called Hubbard and I went to Bentley Highschool the last year it was open, then we moved.
The 3018s can be great. Upgrade with new z bearings and a spindle. Super cheap and makes a world of difference. Mine does business cards all day along with acrylic.
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I got a version that had the upgraded 52mm spindle with aluminum Z axis. I tried it out yesterday making a couple coasters and it seemed to do great. I do need to tweak my design to minimize tool changes, but I’m pretty happy with it so far. Seems like a decent little machine.
Acrylic business cards… that’s an interesting concept I had not thought of.
Amazing what lack of commas and auto correct does.
Meant to type - engrave anodized business cards AND also cuts acrylic all day!
BUT, if I can find some hard thin acrylic, a business card might be great!!!
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Interesting search… I just searched for acrylic business card blanks. Didn’t specifically find acrylic, but lots of PVC blanks. Probably not ideal for business card carving due to lack of clarity. I bet they’re available in acrylic though. Down-side might be the inevitable scuffs/scratches caused by after-carving cleanup that anodized aluminum may be more forgiving of.
I may look into those longer bearings for my Z axis, could add some necessary stability.
I had that very same 500w spindle on my X-Carve for the 4 years I had it. Served me very well, mostly running 1/8" cutters. The spindle shank would flex occasionally if taking too big of a cut, so it took some careful planning & finish passes at times. Nice quiet & smooth spindle though. The one that came with my 3018 is a shorty version of the same motor, but I had to remove the plastic fan from the top because of horrible vibrations.
Great looking coasters and very detailed work, indeed. I would love to try this out to make something for my wife.
The only thing I have ever carved on my 1F is wood. Question, if you don’t mind. Is Vinyl flooring cut/engraved the same way as wood? Can it be cut/egraved with regular endmills/vbits? What type of bits you use to engrave and how do you color? Sorry for too many questions. Do you have YouTube Video of your process. Thanks in advance for your reply.
Thank you for the kind words Kamran. No, sorry, no YouTube videos. I use the same bits that are typically used on wood, nothing out of the ordinary. And yes, most vinyl flooring is absolutely engravable. My favorite colors are light colored flooring surfaces with a dark core. For the most part I just use clear polyurethane to seal & bring out the darker core color after carving. In the past I’ve also used black spray paint, but pretty much only use the clear polyurethane now.
I generally carve .030 - .040 deep in 1/4" flooring, and .030 max in the 1/8" self-stick flooring. A 30 deg. cutter works really well for fine carving, but sometimes you need to go over it twice to clean it up good. I also use a wire brush to clean up the initial carving and determine if it requires a second pass. On coasters with larger text & features that don’t require a V bit, I usually trace around the edges with a 45 or 60 deg. cutter to clean up the corners of the cut. An example would be the North Valley CNC coasters. Other than the website address (which is done with a 20 deg. V bit), the rest is done with a 1/16" end mill, then the edges are cleaned up with a V 60 cutter.
For flooring, try Lowe’s or Home Depot for the pre-cut samples. Those work well for learning on. I was talking with the manager at the Lowe’s where I used to live, and I gave him a coaster for being an unwitting supplier of my flooring. He laughed, and said he wondered why there was an uptick in samples disappearing. 
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Thank you for a very detailed response. You really did great work. I can’t wait to try this out. Do you use 1/8" or 1/4" endmill to cut out the circles?
You’re very welcome, I hope some of that info will be helpful. I use 1/8" bits almost exclusively. On the thicker coasters I use a 1/8" end mill. On the thinner ones I will use smaller ones, especially if it happens to be a cutter I’m using on the face of the coaster. For example, if I’m using a 1/16" bit (as with the North Valley coasters), then I will also cut the outside with the same, then follow up with a chamfer.
If you make a few coasters and decide it’s something you want to do more of, it’s a good idea to make a fixture for them, such as the one pictured with the small machine above. That fixture will do 3 3/4" and 5 3/4" (or larger) coasters. I secure the flooring down with carpet tape. It’s highly desirable (and advised) to not have to cut thru the carpet tape. It makes a mess of the cutter which will require clean up before proceeding with more, and it’s just an all-around messy way to do it. Using these fixtures, I just place a patch of tape in the center to stick the flooring down to. With careful vacuuming before lifting the coasters off the tape, many times you can reuse the tape on the 2nd (and 3rd) batches. The tape tends to stick to the corian fixture plates more so than the coaster backing, so that helps.
Here’s some pics of 3x and 6x coaster fixtures. The flooring I buy is 12" x 24", so I can just squeeze 3 coasters across the 12" width of the flooring (keeping in mind there is a dimensional loss at each edge of the click & lock flooring). Hence the 3.94" spacing for 3.75" coasters, leaving room for the 1/8" end mill between them when cutting out the circles. These fixtures have an additional larger coaster circle cut in the center of each: the 3-place fixture can accommodate a 5 3/4" coaster in the center, and the 6-place fixture can accommodate a 10" table top size coaster in the center.
On the first run of any given batch, I will do the face of the coaster, then cut & chamfer the circles. On the 2nd batch, I will cut the circles, then do the face of the coasters. Just more efficient workflow if I’m doing a bunch of them.
On the thinner self-stick material I try to leave the backing paper in place and still use carpet tape to stick them down. The paper backing many times comes off when removing the coaster, but it has been kept clean for immediately sticking on the (also) self-stick cork backing. The self-stick coaster backing to the self-stick cork backing makes for a good bond that doesn’t come apart. If you have no plans of using the cork backing on the self-stick tiles, you can simply use the self-stick backing to stick the vinyl to the fixture. The self-stick goo cleans off really nicely with Kingsford charcoal lighter (my favorite cheap version of Goo-Gone or similar product).
If you want to get fancy with coasters, you can also inlay them. These coasters were cut from 1/4" corian, then inlaid with 1/8" vinyl flooring. Corian (a.k.a. “hard surface” countertop) is another material that cuts really nice.
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