Kevin wrote:

May as well pick your brains while I'm at it. I need to order some
end mills and I'm wondering what size range I ought to have. I'm
limited to the 1/4" collet of the Colt so nothing bigger than that.
1/4" and 1/8" ought to cover most everything for a straight cutter but
how small do I need to have for ball end for detail 3D work?

That depends on the fineness of the detail. Most of the end mills I've
seen smaller than 1/8" still have 1/8" shanks, so once you have your
collet adapter, you can go about as fine as you like. My KBC Tools
catalog list ball end mills with diameters down to 1/64", and I'd guess
that you should be able to find 1/128 with a bit of looking.

I found one source that said using a split 1/8 to 1/4 adapter
increases runout and they offer a pressed on bushing that they say is
better. Any merit to that?

Perhaps. I think I'd have to wonder if the increase is significant in
the work you do - after all, there isn't any /perfect/ tooling.

I haven't googled this one yet, but is there a table somewhere for
feedrate vs diameter and cutting depth?

There's also RPM and number of flutes that need to be considered along
with diameter.

I'm at a bit of a loss as far as how to price cnc work. There's
design time and that's straightforward enough, but what about running
time on the cnc?

Most of the guys I know doing custom CNC routing bill somewhere between
$50 and $75/hour for machine time.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/