Well I bought one off ebay..

[irving2008]

Just as a query .. I take it that being liquid cooled means the spindle and not gushing water over the tool ? Also if anyone can answer this, and yes it may be a silly question but how do they put the letting on the face plates .. i was thinking of etching them then filling with paint but is there a tool for the miller ? BTW theres money to be made making these custom plates for people, one of the reasons I invested in a miller, to do the one below as a "one off" would have cost me close to £100.. now they sell for less than £6 plus postage .. but back before mass production to get one made so I could mould it would have been very expensive.

example :

Yes, its the spindle thats water cooled. there's no option for coolant on that machine, but when cutting ali a garden spray bottle filling with cutting fluid and the occassional squirt is all thats needed... or a compressed air blast works too. Depends on cutting speed/material/etc.

When I used to do faceplates like that in the past we had these approaches...

prototypes: letraset and lacquer

short/medium run: Screen printed or photostencil, etch and paint-fill. For ali panels, photoresist, etch and anodize was also an option.

medium/large run: screen printed or die punched. Tho milled/paint-filled was used on occassion for equipment that would take a battering or where the panel was too thick for die punching - usually military stuff where cost was less an issue and the paint-fill could be redone in the field.