Wow Andy, more great fabrication work (once again, I have been away and had to catch up on about a month's posts) and it appears that I missed your birthday - so a belated happy birthday to you.
I was also very impressed with how you managed to get a couple of bottles of Handy Andy in each pic.
I'm embarrassed, both you and Bobby were kind enough to comment on my thread, and I read your comments, then got so excited when I saw Vieux's hammer finally arrived I forgot to respond to you guys. My apologies.
Thanks for the birthday wishes. But it was the comment on Handy Andy bottles that I remembered not responding to. It was great fun getting the Handy Andy (thanks Guster) but I've not opened either yet. I can't seem to find just the right place to keep them.
Happy Birthday Andy. I missed it too? Is the Router the future of Craftsmanship? I applaud anyone's ability to use automation for production purposes and progress in the provision of goods. I also believe it is we who are tasked with opening the window of creativity that will inspire the tablet generations to make a connection between their heads and hands that will leave them ending their day with a sense of self-esteem; lest they evolve into beings who see only the finished product; and lose any understanding of the artist's vision?
Thanks for the birthday wishes!!
I have mulled over your comments on craftsmanship and have difficulty responding. It is such a complex topic. My first response is automation and craftsmanship don't mix. I was just using automation to copy the work of others. It is really good at that. I even find it hard to call power tool use craftsmanship; creating with hand tools is so much more satisfying, and you seem to leave part of you in the creation.
But your point of the tablet generation is interesting. You know we no longer print photographs. It's in the phone, that's enough. In some ways it's even better. The tablet generation does 3D printing. That is not far from 3D routing, but I'm not sure there is much desire of the younger crowd to use a variable, flaw filled medium such as wood. PLA filament is perfect, you know.
I delight in giving people their first opportunity to do wood turning. (A lathe is not a power tool, is it?) It amazes all that it is so easy to turn wood, and looks so mysterious. When I made the broom for my coworker's wife, he commented it would be easy to add an electric motor. Very hard for him to understand that I do not want an electric motor on my broom machine. I far prefer spinning the broom accurately with my foot.
So to respond to your treatise, I propose the 3D printer and the "makers" (that's a new term, I like it) who modify their wants to match what the printer will do, is the future of craftsmanship for the average person. They just have no use for a chisel and plane. Much less home made ones.
At this old age I'm finally seeing some logic to what everyone else has known all along. But I'm still firmly a minimalist, just enough to get by. That is, of course, the basis of engineering design for profitable industries.
You can run a pretty high feed rate on foam. I know a guy who remakes vintage surfboards, and his ball mill throws an 8' roostertail of foam chips.
Wheee!!! I think I have to get my router in a box with vacuum before I start on foam.
Guess I’ll wait to see how the shelf brackets are used.
Crickets.
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OK, I guess a thousand words might be better than a picture? Four of them under each board, grasping a pipe at each end. They will serve two purposes. First is to hold the board to the pipe framework. Second is to firmly clamp the pipe so the shelving unit cannot rack with no cross bracing. (Only 956 words to go, and I can do that)
Shorty: I think
Andy already has one of those clamps installed on a post next to his forge that is holding one of his melting pot holders, so check back a week or so and you might see the pics.
Although it is similar, these little clamps are to keep the shelf framework upright.
ANDY: sorry you won't be able to make GOAT JOKES because of me, but i'm sure you've got plenty of other good thoughts and stuff to talk about.
OK, you old goat! (My life would be complete if you've ever owned a GTO)
just curious why you are painting the molds with drywall? is it so the sand won't stick while you are making the molds?
Kind of. These patterns are buried in loose sand. The mold is filled with foam until the metal burns it out. The mud prevents the sand from sticking to the metal and the metal from invading the sand structure, thereby making a rough surface. The mud is surprisingly impervious to the molten aluminum so the casting really looks like the inner face of the mud. If there is a small hole in the foam the mud will go in that hole and reproduce it for the casting.
good to hear you had a good day with one of your old co workers (friends) making brooms and using your forge.
We met in Jakarta in 1979. That's an old friend. He kept saying "This is the shop I want, everything is perfect". Made me feel good
you'll soon be more famous than you already are cause you are almost a tourist stop in Oklahoma now.
HA! We already are a rather famous tourist stop in some circles.
The summer tour season is here and the tour groups are arriving daily. Some just look and have a bite to eat, then go on their way, while others like it here and just hang out with us all summer, fix themselves a place to stay and enjoy all the flowers and the good weather. We've got about six right now that will be with us all summer. They're a little shy and keep thinking I'm going to run them off, but by the middle of the summer they'll hang around close when I'm refilling the feeders. They way they're chasing each other I'm thinking romance is in the air.
cheers
You're an absolute machine Andy. Can't believe how quickly you are churning out those foam patterns for the shelf brackets. Probably cast half of them by now already too.
Following the wooden pattern is quite easy, and the silent hot wire cutting the foam with a pleasant odor is quite therapeutic. Only casting one sprue (two pieces) per day, but I may ramp that up. The holdup is getting them painted and letting them dry.
That plaque came out well.
Thank you! It has arrived in Florida and he is pleased with it so time to start on his second one.
You said a lot in this next paragraph, so I'm just going to butcher it and eat it one bite at a time.
Once you get your CAM optimised a bit I would suggest you reduce the feed-rate for wood a bit to reduce the tear-out.
Hmmm, the feed rate is quite slow, 200 mm/minute. I'm afraid much slower might result in burning. The fuzz was because I'm using a metalworking carbide ball mill, not a router bit, I think.
Why didn't I think to buy router bits?
Switching to a ball-end router bit for the final pass with smaller step-over is also good but means running separate operations.
My original program had another step but in single stepping into it, and studying the simulation it appeared to be defective, was not going to clean up like I thought, and was going to even leave some parts rougher. The star was best after the second operation but there were unfinished areas away from the star. So I went back to the CAM program and developed a new routine to use the ball end mill. Then I loaded new gcode and had the router run that operation. Repeatability is astounding. I found I did have to adjust Z zero to make it work, even though I entered the tool length in the CAM program. I learned if I'm going to change tool length I need an unmilled reference point to zero Z.
Another trick using a conventional router bit is to change feed orientation on the final pass to eat up all the lines left from the step-over distance.
Well, if I'm understanding you, that is what I did. The roughing steps (1/4" end mill and 1/8" end mill) were generally circular around the pattern. That's why you see the nice pattern on the intermediate star photographs. The 2mm ball mill was cut in X-axis parallel passes. 1mm stepover would have been fine for an endmill but a ball mill should have been 0.5 mm or even 0.4mm steps. But the guy I did it for says it's fine, just needs a little love.
Not going to make much difference for pattern as it needs to be filled, sanded and painted anyway but sure you want to create some wooden products down the line that is pretty good straight of the router.
I appreciate your observations and do want to learn to do better.
Finally almost Saturday here too...
Saturday got here today so I pottered in the shed.
My friend seems to think I can do anything so he brought me a challenge. Elevator for a large patio umbrella.
Cracks me up!
I told him we could try to weld it but I have no idea of the alloy, might even be pot metal, Zamak, or other ZA alloys. And it wasn't strong enough before so welding it with an inferior filler through ignorance likely would not last.
It looks like the pole that goes inside is 4.00".
I decided a good opportunity to try lost foam casting. (remember popsickle sticks? You could make anything, a lady in Toledo even made a purse) So the original was shy of 1/4" thick, I went with a heavy 3/8" with a generous flange at the top.
In my little dream world I do great work. Unfortunately I can't show you pictures of that. In my dream world I sanded the top flange to a nice radius top and bottom. In my real world, I forgot. Again. At least it came out about 4" ID so I can turn it out to 4.05" or something suitably loose.
His initials are HWL, so why not. I'm making lots of foam scrap and had a sheet of 1/8" I got from trimming a 1/2" down to 1/4". (hot wire kerf is larger than the wire, and just shy of 1/8".
In my little dream world I did a great job on the letters. I even put the crossbar a little below center on the H to look really good. In the real world they were crooked and the H went on upside down so the crossbar is an inelegant little above center.
Never fear, I never redo work, we'll just cast it like it is.
Gives it that home made look. I'm all about crafts, popsickle sticks and such.
Mudded and ready for hot molten metal tomorrow.
Note to self: Put a piece of cardboard, plywood, carpet or something on the new floor paint before hanging stuff to drip dry.
WW1/2CD?
At least if you're laughing at me you're laying off poor old Bob and his single handed woodworking skills.
You're welcome, Bob.
But I had a good time doing it.
I need to get it bead blasted, I think it will look nice. But a little machining first.
