Well, thanks in part to suggestions here, yesterday I completed creating and cutting out my first test part, Thanks for the help so far.
I am making some pocket clips for fountain pens and they are rather delicate. Rather than practicing on sterling silver sheet, I'm cutting the parts from .050" sheet green hard wax since some clips will be cast and the wax parts will be masters to make molds from.
For those who cut wax on their mills I have a question; Is their a preferred speed/feed and type of endmill to create the cleanest edges of a part?
I used a 1/16" two fluted bit with rather short cutting flutes and cut at a rather slow speed and the wax seemed to wad up on the end mill. I made three passes of .015" each then a final pass of .006" and if you look at the photo, you will see that the gob of wax on the cutter made contact with the part on each subsequent pass causing a build up of wax on the part itself.
I have seen a few videos where folks are cutting wax and they are creating tiny chips rather than having the wax gob up on their cutters so obviously I need to find a better process. My first thought would be to make only one pass at the entire depth of .050" since it's just wax and perhaps another bit with longer flutes in the hopes that the wax would run up the bit rather than stay close to the tip causing the gob.
The wax is the hardest Rio Grande Jewelry Supply sells and is what they recommend for machining. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
