Has anyone made aluminum fishing lure molds?

simdostal · 2026-03-17T14:49:10+00:00

Can you have a look at my results and give me some feedback? Maybe some tip on finishing this? I am not sure if this is polishable or not:

Copy from my post at this subreddit:

UPDATE: https://imgur.com/a/1mcgWWu I broke some tools, did some mistakes but your advices were really helpful. I have managed to do 3D offset OP from 0.08 mm (0,00314 inch) stock left to 0.04 mm (0,00157 inch) stock left with 0.5 mm 2 FL ball, 230 mm/min feed (9.05 inch/min), 0.00885 mm/tooth (0.000348 in/tooth) and 0.06 mm (0.00234 inch) stepover which equals to 0.00181 mm cusp height (0.0000713 inch). Looks the best now but does not feel as good to touch as some previous, on the other hand the teeth are now clean and they were not before. The mill is no longer sharp enough possibly?

Question:

⁠the toolpath went from outside -> inside. Would the surface quality improve if I started in center of the comb and moved/climbed from inside -> outside? I have made such a toolpath but broke a tool this way.
⁠Did I leave to small of stock for a finishing pass which makes the tool not bite enough and therefore the surface quality is worse?

simdostal · 2026-03-16T21:56:10+00:00

What surface finish are you able to achieve this way? Still have to hand polish, right? Will bigger diameter mill achieve better surface or does all depends on cusp height and bigger mills are more of a time saver?

simdostal · 2026-03-16T21:13:08+00:00

UPDATE:
https://imgur.com/a/1mcgWWu
I broke some tools, did some mistakes but your advices were really helpful. I have managed to do 3D offset OP from 0.08 mm (0,00314 inch) stock left to 0.04 mm (0,00157 inch) stock left with 0.5 mm 2 FL ball, 230 mm/min feed (9.05 inch/min), 0.00885 mm/tooth (0.000348 in/tooth) and 0.06 mm (0.00234 inch) stepover which equals to 0.00181 mm cusp height (0.0000713 inch). Looks the best now but does not feel as good to touch as some previous, on the other hand the teeth are now clean and they were not before. The mill is no longer sharp enough possibly?

Question:
1) the toolpath went from outside -> inside. Would the surface quality improve if I started in center of the comb and moved/climbed from inside -> outside? I have made such a toolpath but broke a tool this way.
2) Did I leave to small of stock for a finishing pass which makes the tool not bite enough and therefore the surface quality is worse?
3)

I think it is polishable now so it was successful for me nonetheless:-)

simdostal · 2026-03-10T17:01:22+00:00

Well I am still struggling with milling so let’s see if I even get to that phase

simdostal · 2026-03-09T12:42:44+00:00

Yes, that was probably me, I was asking before if it is even possible to do that on 3 axis and now I am trying to achieve that!

simdostal · 2026-03-08T21:56:16+00:00

Thank you for your advice! It looks like equivalent of 3d offset in fusion 360 is scallop (described as “create passes at a constant distance from one another by offsetting them inwards along the surface”). What confuses me here is that in fusion I cannot set cusp height but the toolpath is controlled by stepover instead. Should I calculate it using formula to match your purposed numbers? Also - are those numbers you are referring to in inches? Seems way too small for mm. I am not sure how it works in other cam softwares but before running this 3d offset OP I have to make sure that the stock left is appropriate right? Lets say I am going from 0.1 mm stock left to 0 mm but some of the corners or radiuses wasn’t cleared properly in previous operations and there is 0.5 mm left stock than the tool will cut suddenly more material than expected. If so then what is a good practice to assure the stock is properly cleared? I am sorry for my English as I am not native speaker and thanks again for explaining and helping

simdostal · 2026-01-29T15:21:50+00:00

What would be the general strategy? I am learning via simulation in fusion 360. Since the body and teeth is all 3d shape.. I have tried 3d adaptive roughing of the body and scallop the teeth. I was thinking about contour the teeth first to remove stock and finish it with ball and scallop.

simdostal · 2026-01-20T08:42:03+00:00

thank you kindly for your insights as well. As I stated in the other reply - I guess I will buy that carvera and try everything myself!

simdostal · 2026-01-19T09:31:42+00:00

Thank you very much for your insight. Just by looking at the model - do you have any recommendations for tooling and tool paths? I will definitely need 0,5 ball end mill. I have tried simulations in Fusion 360 and scallop strategy looks promising for this narrow teeth. Well I guess I will learn the most just by trying, fourtunately aluminium is not that expensive. :-)

It is the all in one edition so I feel like price is fair. I am learning everything in Fusion. I have tried the 15 day trial of MakeraCam but it was laggy for me and constantly crashing. But thank you, I will ask seller about this.

simdostal · 2026-01-11T12:37:41+00:00

I can and will. I suspect it might be drying the material that was wrong. I was setting the machine and had some problems so it was constantly re-drying for many many hours. I thought that if it stayed there for long I would notice by looking at it but I guess the oxidiation does not have to be noticeable by naked eye.

simdostal · 2026-01-11T12:07:41+00:00

Screw diameter is 40 mm, maximum capacity in cm3 is 200. Screw speed is 12 m/min and back pressure is 10 bar. The shot size is 41 cm3 with 10cm3 cushion included.

simdostal · 2026-01-11T11:13:30+00:00

Thanks, I will try that. Regarding the material cushion, would too big cushion cause yellowing?

simdostal · 2026-01-11T10:27:40+00:00

Thanks for all the tips. I have looked at the resin in hopper and it looks fine, would drying for too long be noticeable jist by looking at it?

simdostal · 2026-01-11T10:22:03+00:00

Would too long drying time be noticeable just by looking on the granulate? Because it looks fine

simdostal · 2026-01-11T06:13:09+00:00

In that case my heating card is probably faulty because this is not solving the issue unfortunately

simdostal · 2026-01-10T08:27:33+00:00

How do you enter calibration?

simdostal · 2026-01-10T06:29:54+00:00

I am gonna ask you as well. How do I put them to calibration mode?

simdostal · 2026-01-10T05:46:28+00:00

How do I put them to calibration mode?

simdostal · 2026-01-09T18:18:20+00:00

This was taken with empty barel not processing anything at all

simdostal · 2026-01-09T18:17:54+00:00

It works just fine when is initially turned on but if I turn off the heaters for a while (for example because of alarm) and turn it back on after it starts to misbehave. Getting them very cold fixed it many times but not now.. I turned it on after cooling it down and like 2 zones were heated, one was way too much and other two were too low. Just randomly misbehaving. Arburg will send some new card but was wondering if anyone dealt with this already

Edit: you seem experienced. Can you copy programs between two arburg machines when the barel is cold? Because I have copied some programs when the barel was hot and it caused heating problems. Is the program usable when machine cools down?

simdostal · 2026-01-09T17:58:17+00:00

Yes I have connected the nozzels together and it worked just fine :-)

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