Really wish I had a friend with milling equipment . . . And holy crap, those aluminum plates must have cost a small fortune! Really intrigued by the design though, and (as everyone else has said) looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
Ask Skyrip. He does CNC jobs for a very decent price. Aluminium is ridiculously cheap, actually. The big 12mm plates cost no more than £60,--.
Shipping to the US would probably make Skyrip's prices less appealing . . . but I will ask anyway since I have a couple pieces I've been trying to figure out how to cut with just a hand drill and a scroll saw Ok, that's not too bad for the aluminum. I double checked the prices here and realized that anything with a max dimension less than 12" is pretty reasonable. It does seem to skyrocket for anything larger though, which is the price that stuck in my head.
Prices do indeed go up exponentially as the slabs get bigger and thicker, so you have to factor that into your design. There is also an upper limit to the size that smaller workshop CNCs can manage. You also want to make sure that your piece can be milled from a single side, if possible. Flipping the part over to do the other side means having to mount it in exactly the same location as it was before, and that is hugely laborious. You will note in Ada that most parts are duplicates. There are eight parts but there were only five different designs involved (with one being just a mirror image of the other). All these tricks made it easier and cheaper to produce.
They're "gold" anodised titanium, meant to look like brass, but are actually somewhat lime yellow. Unfortunately the colour can vary depending on the voltages applied in the anodising process and you can never tell by the images on a website exactly what you will get. After the test fit I put them back in their bag and I'm returning them (the advantage of titanium is that they are scratch proof). On the image below you can see the bolts compared to some brass screws I happen to have: Note how the bolts are much more yellow-green than amber. On its own not a huge problem, but it will contrast too much with other brass parts. Luckily Birmingham has a lot of jewellery and metal industry. A local fasterer company is going to manufacture some brass bolts for me to my spec, as they do not exist off-the-shelf. It will be slightly more expensive than the titanium bolts, but I really need them to look right, especially as the reservoir will also be brass (I'm stripping the nickel plating).
Ahh was wondering as I must use 1000's of fixings in a year and never seen any like that well not in brass.
I remember my Commodore 64! I'm ancient! I have just had my brass Aquatube stripped from its nickel coating. The brass underneath is beautiful --it looks more like gold. Will post pics when polished and brushed.
Looks Klingon, definitely Klingon. Klingon copyright, we will sue! Jeez, they cost enough Great work, subbed
What? A Nexxo MOD thread, oh chap, you've another subscriber! Lovely work on those milled parts, love the background info and the design looks very unique indeed!
Metaversa 2 - Awesome, awesome to the max! I'll need to get my modding spirits up (again), so yeah, I'll be definitely watching this one. Darkened
