Router for engraving/marking work?

[motoguy]

As some of you may recall, I was having gantry twist issues with my Bulltear 6x12 table. Matt at Bulltear did some review, and says his router reinforcing brackets should take care of my gantry wobble. Not only for plasma, but it should also be sufficient for routing work. Since he is supplying the reinforcing brackets, I thought I would go ahead and order the router Mount as well. He offers a router mount for a 2.25 hp Bosch router.

I know I can use the router for wood, plastic, and light aluminum work. I am wondering, will it work for steel? Specifically, and place of a scribe, or engraving pen? Something to do some scroll work, text, Etc? Not Milling, as much as plate marking.

[ben de lappe]

I ran a 2.25hp router on my TM 3- 5'x10' and engraved all types of material from copper and steel to glass and a rock or two. I had pretty good luck but as you noted milling of steel (or aluminum with my gantry) isn't going to happen. With a router you have the ability to make very fine adjustments to depth of cut by the thousandths as well as multiple passes if need be so you do have some flexibility concerning a proper engraving. I'm not certain but I would think that engraving with a router would be a slower process than a scribe/plate marker.
One simple project I did that may classify as "milling" was a copper label approx. 3"x5" maybe .030 thickness. When the engraving was complete I changed my tool to a small end mill to cut the profile and complete the piece. Even this thin I programmed three passes in order to cut through cleanly without much stress to the plywood backer below.