Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Seawolf, July 20. #40 Getting ready for Assembly Summer 2010!

go on, just give the paint a rub down and put some bondo on there and make it perfect. Wont take long at all to get right.

Must say it is cool!

 

Yeah, mad, but human

 

Lol! Indeed. The bottoms should now be fixed. I'll put some pictures up with the next update.

 

#9 Teflon turning



I prowled around at a plastics supplier Etra planning to buy some white delrin and acrylic tube, when I found this beauty in a bargain bin. It is a 170mm long piece of heavy plastic. The rod has a diameter of 83mm and weights about 2kg. There were smaller pieces there, but this one was enough to fit my needs. The price was ridiculously cheap 3e/kg! At home I calculated that the density of this thing is 2.27g/m^3 so it is probably ptfe. The normal price for a piece of this size is 60e!

I didn't need the delrin anymore, but I still asked about the acrylic. Apparently they haven't sold it in years. I'll have to look elsewhere some other time.



First I cut a 25mm thick slice off the rod. The sawing took some time with my puny hacksaw. I had to use a moistened rag to keep the rod from slipping.



After a while I had a puck of plastic.



My 3-jaw chuck was too small to grab the piece, so I had to switch to a 4-jaw and center it. Then I faced one side of the puck. I had never worked with teflon before, so the ease of machining really surprised me. In the pic my feedrates are all wrong as can be seen from the thin web of swarf. It even feels like spiderweb.



While turning I made one mistake. I was going in 0.5 mm but forgot that the cross feed digs in double the amount. I realised my mistake after feeding in about 3 mm. In the pic the error can be seen as a small step in the shaft. I decided to leave the diameter as it is because I won't know the actual inner diameter of the mating acrylic tube until I get it. It should be 52 mm but you never know. Later I turned a o-ring groove on the shaft.



After finishing the other side, I switched to the 3-jaw chuck and flipped the piece into it. This way the other side should be quite concentric to the back side.



I faced the surface using bolder cutting action. I found out I could get a 2mm wide chip at the outer edge of the piece ( 83 mm ) with the motor happily churning. The swarf is interesting. It's highly elastic, but soft. At one point a 2 m long springy coil decided to shoot out in a straight line at my face. Suddenly, I could vividly imagine how Spiderman's victims must feel like!



For the next phase I needed a 45-degree taper. Protractors are nice.



At last, the piece was done. It is going to be a top cap for my reservoir. The top will be tapped to G1/4" after I get my tap. After turning the surface felt soft and coarse like the surface of a hard soap.



I decided to polish the top a bit with a lapping kit. I was using a frying pan as a cover for the kitchen table.

After lapping, I also tried a bit of autosol to polish the plastic.



The top turned out nice. In normal light it looks like a really smooth matte. At an angle it looks nice and reflective.



I also fixed the rad bottoms with the help of my little brother. They look much better now.



Finally, here's some teflon that still clings to the walls.

 

Another nice score. You didn't need delrin anyway. That stuff is perfect.
It looks like someone threw a party on your lathe.

 

Lol! I was thinking about the same thing when I was cleaning those off.

The teflon should be more resistant to chemicals than delrin. Although, I don't think Feser One will eat at delrin either.

 

The rads look a lot better now Nice work on the lathe btw. Can't wait to see more lathing action

 

What a big piece!
It's incredible what someone can do with a lathe, I wish I have some free space in my lab
anyway, good idea, and I am surprised that the teflon can be polished!

 

those rads are getting nicer and nicer each time... really love them

 

#10 Turning some more teflon

Off I go then!



Today I started making another part for the reservoir. It is going to be a new top for the Laing DDC pump that has the reservoir attached over it.
I again began with sawing a block of teflon.



Similar to the reservoir top, I mounted the piece in the 4-jaw chuck. I turned a 52mm diameter shaft for the acrylic tube and faced the end surfaces.



I drilled a 10mm through-hole for the pump intake and to help the boring.



Next I tried to carve an 46.85 degree ( tangent of 22.50/24mm ) inside taper for the reservoir bottom. The job was difficult, because all my boring bars would need a bigger center hole to prevent tool heel from dragging on the workpiece.
I had to enlarge the hole step by step with the countersink portion of a center drill as it is the biggest drill bit I have



Here is the finished taper. Because of the technique I used, the surface was quite coarse. I'm not really sure if that is a bad thing, though. The taper works to make a vortex that separates air from the water. A coarse "ringy" surface decreases water's lateral velocity, which could in theory increase the efficiency of the separating vortex! If this theory turns up to be false, I can sand it smooth. After this I also added the o-ring groove on the upper part of the shaft.



Next I flipped the part and mounted it in the 3-jaw chuck. At this point it came clear that I made a stupid mistake. The only way to mount the piece was by the thin edge right next to the taper. I should have turned the thicker part first and the shaft part last. Nevertheless, I had to try if I could get the piece to turn properly!
I couldn't. When I was roughing the outer rim to 60mm the bit dug in and the piece budged in the chuck jaws. The jaws mangled the upper edge of the taper.
I still decided to finish the piece as a mock up for practice.



The outer edge should be invisible beneath a sheet of acrylic but the taper suffered some damage too.
The whole piece will have to be made from scratch!



Despite the drawback, this is what the final piece would look like atop the pump. I would still need to drill a hole for the pump output and turn an aluminum retaining ring to mount the pump top to the pump. The 60/52mm acrylic tubing will mount between the pump top and the reservoir top. I will use 3mm o-rings on the seals. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the regular black type, white silicon or white PTFE o-rings.



This shows where the pump is to be mounted on the frame. The pump will sit on a 3mm aluminum plate. It will be cushioned with a layer of rubber. The edge of the taper will be level with a sheet of acrylic.

Today's work might look like a small and quick job, but it took me 4 hours to make it the first time.
Hopefully when I do the pump top again, it will be quicker! Life is study.

 

Good job, or maybe i have to say good exercise before doing the real item?

Anyway, I love your idea about the separating vorex to let the air out of the loop, if this work you're set, or you can sand it smooth in zero time

I'm wandering where to put a lathe in my lab, but I suppose it's impossible :-(

 

From experience I'd say put it under a desk The only downside is that you have to clean the desk whenever you want to take it out. That and it's not very ergonomic!

 

Under my desk I have : pc, cnc controller, bandsaw, drill, tons of stuff...
Maybe I'll find a convenient place for all this items if I dig a hole :-(

 

#11 Some more...

Today I continued with the lathe.



The teflon block is short enough that I can mount it whole in the lathe. Machining forces don't really bend the rod much. The 40mm long end has a diameter 60.06 mm at the base and 60.03 mm at the end. That means the combined effect of headstock-ways misalignment and machining force bend is 0.75mm per 1m. Note that this time I'm turning the bottom before the top



Today making one took only 2.5 hours compared to the earlier 4 hours. Measuring, aligning and changing chucks and tools take most of the time.



I also found a printed render I made of the reservoir a while back. At that point I was still planning to make two o-ring seals. I think one is enough.

 

Hyvältä näytää siihen asti

Where exactly did you find the material you made this from, as I'm not very far away and still looking for a supplier for acrylics and stuff

 

Kiits!

Etra megastorella has at least in Tampere a bargain bin of full of bits and pieces of different engineering plastics. They don't have acrylic, but they recommended Vink plastics.

 

You've done a bit since I last checked. Looks good. Nice soldering work and I hope you'll get that reservoir the way you want it

 

Hmm interesting read that's for sure, the fact you haven't shown us any pictures of your basic ideas is why your log is always a surprise whenever you post an update, I'd say keep going like this.

Also, great job on your radiator, hopefully you managed to get them how you want them to be. What I am curious is about is how and where you plan to mount your reservoir in the current state your "case" is at at the moment. But I guess that's a tad too soon to ponder about, and you will most likely want to keep it a secret .

I'd subscribe, but I'll just bookmark this one Keep it up buddy.

 

The new res cap looks good!

 

#12 Cut to size

I took a small break from Seawolf but I'm back again. I've been planning a lot on what I want to do with certain things, but I'll show you when I get there. For now I finalized the designs for some panels and structural elements. Today I finally got the panels back from watercutting!



From left to right there's a front panel, two motherboard trays and a bottom panel. All the panels are 3mm aluminum.
All of them require deburring. For the sake of structural integrity I had to scrap the designs for one panel. I will be replacing it with rectangular tubing.



There was a slight mistake on the bottom panel. The prong on the left is missing a straight line after the tip.
This right one will have to be filed down to match the left one.



At first I thought they made a mistake at the watercutter's.
After checking my original cad-drawings the mistake is obvious. I can't understand how I could have missed that!



A quick mockup with masking tape and everything seems to fit. Of course the angles are not correct.



That front panel logo just came to me one night. It's a simple form that looks more complicated at first glance.
I don't know how much it will show but it's enough for me to know it's there.



Next I did some compliance testing on the motherboard trays. Namely, checking if the holes and pci-brackets fit. I used an old scrap motherboard. So far so good.



I'm not going to have two motherboards. The other motherboard tray will mount in front of the motherboard. It will have to come off when switching cards.



Even the pci bracket tab fits perfectly! That extra hole is an extra one included in the standard. This old mb didn't have a mounting hole there.

Hopefully the new plates will help me start mounting things in place.