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

Thanks everyone hopefully I'll get chance on thursday to do the roughing pass for the underneath, I've just been crazy busy the past couple of weeks.

 

I actually managed to get some work done today, heres the whole roughing pass on the underside:







Theres a knot in the wood but some filler will fix that:



There's also a release angle on the ends so it will come out the sand during the mould making:



Im on christmas holiday next week so there will be alot more updates coming soon.

 

I'll be wait'n for a little Christmas cheer here with this

 

Nice work! Really impressed by your CNC

 

Thanks guys

Heres the underside of the front panel during CNC:









And with the CNC finished:





All thats left now is to chop/sand off those square supports on the sides, then take it to the sand casters.

 

Awesome news , got there in the end then

 

Yep , I finaly get back to doing more hands on work, rather than watching a machine do it for me

 

Nice work with CNC realy a great job!!!

Congratulations!!!

 

Can't wait to see the aluminium piece .

 

sweet! Grats on battling through to get the mould finished

Now, bring your video camera to the sand casters so we can see molten hot alu being poured

 

Thanks Marcos

Yeah me too

I'll see what I can do, hopefully they will let me, they know my dad so I might get him to try and persuade them.

 

They'd be crazy to let a free advertising spot get away. Maybe you can get a little discount deal too

 

Unfortunately its not always that simple haha. Many companies have disclosure agreements that have to abide by, though I do think that an operation like this probably wont have a problem with it. The company I work for has a foundry but its all cast iron and we do massive, massive quantities of sand castings (like 300ish casts an hour) so I hope they do say yes. I'd be thrilled to see the differences in casting processes!


So far you've kept the mod right on par with your Silent Fiberglass mate. Really have loved your work all around

 

Yeah, hopefully it will be easy so long as theres no disclosure agreements like sixfootsideburns said or any health and safety rules which could prevent me from filming, however its only a small local casting company so I dont think it will be a problem. I will have to wait for the right day though as they build up a large quantitys of moulds then cast them all in a row.

Thanks sixfootsideburns


Heres the front panel with the support blocks sanded off, and the drill holes filled in:

 

Awesome work buddy!!!

 

Thanks Alex, I also forgot to say that those rough ends will be cut off the finished casting.

 

Nice work. I presume you will be varnishing or waxing the wood otherwise you would have just used MDF?

BTW have you tried Mach3 to manage your CNC? I'm looking into starting a small side business and it seems to come with most commercially available CNC machines.

 

Sorry if I missed it...but what CAM program are you using? It seems like the path isn't ideal for that surface. What I mean is that instead of zig-zag, I think you should be doing a constant overlap surface (anyone familiar with MasterCAM will know what I mean). This will follow the surface instead of zig-zag, so in your case, it will go around in a rectangular shape, leaving the steeper edges smoother with no scallops.

Hope this helps!

 

Yep Mach3 is the one I use, it works great, cheap too, and the manual is epic, lol.

I'm using sketchup to create the 3D models, and Cut3D to create the toolpaths. Those rough edges are just there to create the sand casting mould and will be chopped off later to leave both ends open. Is the toolpath your on about the one where is works diagonally from corner to corner instead of horizontally from front to back?

The sandcasting company manager was off site today so I'll phone again tomorrow to find out whether I can film the casting.

 

This is what I was talking about.



Instead of the zig-zag. May save time if you have to do this ever again!