wrote in message
...
I need to punch or cutout about 400 5.790" diameter circles from
some various fine nickel woven screen. (thickest is 0.016" thick)

I had the first batch waterjet cut and it was both expensive and somewhat
wateful of the expensive screen.

I tried setting up a fixutre on my CNC mill to mill a circle in two
steps....
(Unclamp one set of clamps and reclamp a different set of already set
clamps) and the quality of the edge
was not good as the loose wires on the edge enede up splayed apart
vertically as the mill cut them.
I really need a clean cut leaving the material flat.
It also took forever.....


Some sort of punch arangement might work, but its an odd size so I'd
probably have to make the
punch inner and outer myself and doing 400 operations on the hand pumped
hydralic press does not sound fun.


Any good ideas?


I just cut some steel screen with my CNC plasma cutter and was pleased with
the way it turned out. I can't comment on the nickel screen but plasma table
time is considerably cheaper than waterjet.
Steve