Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Blue Horizon - "MOTY" Nominee

very nice work

 

I've been following this with interest rm, but I must have missed something. Why not just
mill the top from alu and skip the casting step? Mind, I am enjoying seeing what's involved.

 

Most likely because his router really isn't set up to mill aluminum. You need coolant, which would really screw up the table.

 

Thanks Razarach

Yep you guessed it, coolant is required and my machine wouldn't be up to the task of milling alu, the milling bits and the machine itself have to be a lot stronger and it would cost alot more too.


Heres the video of the CNC in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB1iMuc_py0

 

Oh, OK. It's just that I've seen other modders do heaps of routing without lube
and using carbide wood bits. I've done some of this myself, and your machine looks
very robust.

I watch.

 

Really, were they small pieces though?

 

Really nice work with the build. I Love everythin that has something to do with alu.
I'm prepared to agree with attila. I think your mill looks rigid enough to handle som alu. I think it's all about calculacting the right feeds and speed and taking small cuts and it'll work.

You say it will cost a lot more if milling...then what do they charge for the casting? because it sounds pretty expensive to mee. If I understand it right your gonna split the wax on the length and make two thinner pieces? In that case I think you might need to add some feeders/risers to the casting but you maybe already thought of that. looking forward to see the finished casting. Good luck

 

I loved the CNC video and I agree with the other guys that your CNC looks strong enough to handle minor alu works. Just remember to add fluids yourself. You could either do this manually, or quite easily build a filtered cooling fluid system to attach to the moving CNC tool head.

 

Nice Vid! interesting choice of music too

 

Ah, I'll have a look into milling the alu tomorrow on my day off. The casting will be around £30. Yep I'm gonna split it down the lenght to make two thinner peices. If you a feeder as in a feed for the molten alu to pour through so that it reaches all the parts of the mould then yes I'm gonna melt some blocks of wax onto the wax peice ive just made to assit the pouring of the alu.

Thanks LooseNeutral , the music was one of the only ones I liked that youtube provides on its audioswap, I was gonna put some different music on but they would just remove it.

 

Just a quick update:


I'm currently waiting for a quote from a company to see how much lost wax casting would be. If its too much I'll stick with sandcasting. Also in order to test whether my CNC can cut aluminium I first have to complete my wax mould as it must stay in exactly the same spot so I can cut out the underside. So if lost wax casting turns out to be cheap then I'll mill out the underside of the wax then I can test whether or not my CNC can mill aluminium. So then if it can't mill it I can still go back on my original plan of casting.

The company I'm asking for the lost wax casting is:

http://www.pi-castings.co.uk/

They also have a 3D printer which prints wax, layer upon layer in order to create a perfect 3D wax mould, which sounds awesome .

 

I was thinking the same thing - a block of aluminium for the top would probably work out around the same cost as the wax process and without the hassle of having to sand it all down as much as a rough surface. Couldn't you jut set the CNC to cut to minimal depth in each pass to lessen the strain on it? Wish I had a CNC milling machine. Still, I gues we'd miss out on a cool aluminium casting video then...

 

Yeah you can make it mill in levels, but its so slow it would probably take the entire day lol. Also if I do the lost wax process the final aluminium peice is as smooth as the wax you create the mould with, and casting is much more fun , hopefully I will get that quote tomorrow which will be the deciding factor.

 

I'm digging this whole casting thing here. Watching a lot of the stuff on youtube. Nice link to company.'nother one to put in the ideas file!

 

Thanks LooseNeutral, sorry about there being no update for a while. Im trying to find a company that can do lost wax casting for one off's but I'm not having much luck, they all seem to just do large quantities. So I'm gonna have to go back to sand casting. I also tried milling some alu on my CNC but it didn't work very well, I think the router that is used to spin the tool has too much speed and not enough torque.

I'm currently trying to figure out why cambam isn't creating the correct toolpath, as you can see from the pic below the left side has a different toolpath than the right side:

 

Does cambam have a forum? you might find some help there. Might be a combination of things milling the alum... not that I would know, just guessing. Maybe a high grade bit and a slower path rate. The_Gnu spoke of this here a few comments ago. Drag to hear about the lost wax companies. Seems to have a decent following with the home brew crowd making jewelry and such. You bound to a have a community there somewhere that could help you out. From what I've seen on youtube you might look at peeps that make model engines with the sand casting. You'll be fine.. but fingers crossed here for you

 

Its the computer generation of the toolpath which is going wrong (before it goes to the CNC). Cambam just keeps messing it up I've tried all the different setting and when I fix one problem with the toolpath it generates another . I might have to learn how to use a different software as cambam doesn't seem to work. I'm also having a look to see whether I can find a Ovolo cutter for a manual router so I could cut the outside shape. I never thought this would take soooo long.

 

I finally have a solution, after consulting a few people, I've found a program called Cut3D which can be used to generate toolpaths and simulate them straight from an exported sketchup 3ds file, just like Cambam except it actually generates a decent toolpath lol. Heres a pic of the simulated finished part:



So tomorrow I will set the CNC machine off, those square blocks on the top are just for re-aligning the stock to machine the underside. I can't beleive how long its taken to get this sorted out.

 

Hope all goes well. Look forward to seeing the the results.

 

9.5 hours of machining!