Soooo... where do I buy wax? For testing my mill on stuff that I can melt back into a brick. Candle wax? Can I just go to discount stores & buy a whole bunch of discounted candles?
You should really look at machinists wax. use-enco.com or http://www.freemansupply.com/ if you search on www.cnczone.com there should be instructions for making your own.
So freeman wax seems to be for creating molds with loss-less quality. Not really what I'm going for, is it? I want to rough cut cheap re-usable material until I have all the details worked out, then cut it out of metal. Is there a reason regular wax won't work? Is there something freeman wax gives me extra?
machinists wax (freeman makes many types for many different uses) is harder, and will cut cleanly. Regular candle wax is much softer and gummier, meaning you run a higher risk of melting it to the bit when not cutting at proepr speeds and feeds (and even sometimes if you are) as well as the worse tolerances you will get. the best rough cheap material is pink foam from home depot. not reusable, but holds tolerances well and is as forgiving as it gets. dusty though, clean the ways and screws often.
Hello, In addition to what Greg said you can also use parts made from machinist wax for masters for rubber molds. After you use machinist wax the first time you will ask yourself how you lived with out it before. I use a small vac to catch all the wax as it comes off the cutter to reduce loss. I bough mine through the Tech college years ago and still have over half of what I started with. Chuck
