Custom Brass Trigger Guards pics of operations

Heres a few pics of the Brass guards that I have made. First shows clearance holes for the non-center cutting rougher to drop down into. Using a Rougher gives less harmonic noise and is more efficient wih faster feeds. I am only holding on with .060 extra material. Using a Rougher cuts machining time down by half. Using a high helix carbide end mill gave a better finish but I am using a custom ground Carbide profiling tool. Machine time is about 25 minutes.



The programming is done in MasterCam and theres dozens of ways to program a part, I have a small machine and I have to be conservative with feeds & speeds. Tooling is critical and tried several types before settling on the rougher.


Now for the custom ground Carbide profiling tool. Machine time 20 minutes.



I will ad some more pics of the next steps, when done hand finish and polishing then done!!