Jonathan Anderson

For Christmas 2020, I made an ornament for some friends who’d recently had a baby. The ornament was cut out of 1/4" 360 brass. The design had my friends' childrens names engraved around the periphery with a custom logo in the middle to commemorate their first Christmas together.

A couple things were challenging for this design:

1. I had to use small tooling (a 1/16" endmill) to achieve some of the tight corners/internal radii in the design.
2. I ended up deciding to use an old machinist trick for workholding (see YouTube video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6DCvtcU8_M). The fixturing technique uses superglue to hold the workpiece to the table. I could’ve used soft jaws mounted in the vise for workholding this job, but since this was a one-off piece, I wanted to try out the superglue technique instead for quicker initial setup. This technique requires adequate surface area and dialed in feeds/speeds to work as intended. Too fast a feed rate, and the cutter could grab the workpiece and shear the superglued bond. Too slow a feed rate, and the cutter could rub on the workpiece creating friction/heat that could jeopardize the glued joint.

The smaller endmill and the new workholding technique were definitely concerns at the start of this project, but both ended up performing phenomenally. The 1/16" endmill cut smoothly, providing a great surface finish with no chipping/breakage in the tool. The superglue workholding also worked well (almost too well, as I had to use a heat gun to break the ornament free after machining).

I finished the ornament by wet sanding to a smooth finish, cleaning with Brasso, and then sealing the ornament with a polyurethane overcoat to protect it from tarnishing. Overall, I’m really proud of how this ornament turned out and picked up some new techniques along the way!