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| AdeV:
Hi Dean - So... we have a "(Potential) Championship Winning Aircraft Aluminium Alloy Billet CNC Dry Sump" :D Sounds good to me, I know I'd pay £££'s for one! :lol: I also realised I didn't answer your question about contaminants in the wax: To answer that now, I suspect the metal bits will sink, and the "floor dirt" and sawdust should float, so by skimming the top & bottom off any ingot, one should (in theory) be left with plain wax. However, I'm not sure what influence any cutting oil/WD40 will have.... as there's bound to be some of that in with my wax swarf, we'll find out when I come to re-melt some... Anyway, on with the show. Didn't achieve a massive amount today... had to make some T-nuts for the rotary table first. Well, when I say some T-nuts, I mean one giant one: I had this crazy idea that, with one big T-nut sticking out of the rotab on each side, I could use the excess material to clamp the sump to the table. In the event, the T-nut wasn't quite long enough for that idea (oops), and the clamping was very sub-optimal. I will have to think of a better solution for the real deal. Fortunately, this being wax, it can tolerate being fairly lightly clamped, as the cutting forces are quite low. --- Quote ---[EDIT] I forgot to include in today's update, yet another plug for these little fellas: I'd been faffing about with an old 3/4" carbide cutter milling the T-nut to size, and it was taking ages. The cutter wouldn't stand any more than 10 thou per pass, at about 150mm/min (so that's what, about 6"/min). As I've now got a glut of those 6mm rippas, I figured - what the hell, let's push one to death & see what happens. Well, it took 50 thou deep cuts, full width, at 500mm/min (nearly 2ft/minute), and survived! I maybe could have pushed it harder, but that was near enough for me. So, if you don't have any rippa cutters in your arsenal, I can very very very highly recommend them for rapid metal removal. :thumbup: [/EDIT] --- End quote --- The rotary table is a bit of a pain TBH, it's extremely heavy, and doesn't (currently) have any means of locking the table down. I will need to fix that before I make the aluminium sump... Anyway, with the piece loaded up, the first light cut is taken to verify the angle (inconveniently milling away the line I'd drawn): It looked good, so I finished that cut, then all the others. It's not really obvious from the picture - due to the artistic (and completely accidental) mood lighting - that the cut is, in fact, in the X-axis direction. So anyway, a few twists & turns later: All of those were measured & cut by eye, so they could be anywhere... but they're all near enough I think. Having dispensed with the rotab & returned to just the angle plate, Mr Accuracy has been allowed back into the room. I've now worked out the angles for the troughs down into the drain holes, but haven't cut them yet (it got too late). That's tomorrow sorted, then.... and once I've cut the troughs out, it's D-Day. Drill day, that is... |
| Rob.Wilson:
This is one of the coolest post i have ever seen , Great stuff AdeV , I like the wax idea :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: Cheers Rob |
| Darren:
I can see you are going to be pleased with you alloy sump already Adev :clap: :clap: :clap: |
| Dean W:
--- Quote from: AdeV on March 03, 2010, 04:10:18 PM ---Hi Dean - So... we have a "(Potential) Championship Winning Aircraft Aluminium Alloy Billet CNC Dry Sump" :D Sounds good to me, I know I'd pay £££'s for one! :lol: --- End quote --- You missed your calling, Ade. You should be in marketing, on Wall St. Thanks for the reply on the wax shavings. I'll watch for the remelt results. More good progress today on your oil pan (sump). Nice dramatic lighting. Good results. Dean |
| AdeV:
Rob - thank you! Although I have a long way to go before I'm anywhere near your quality of workmanship. But I hope to get there one day... Darren - yep, I reckon so. And after today's update, even more so I think. Dean - ugh, marketing! Don't... Now.... on with the show. When we left the action yesterday, I'd got the sump back on the angle plate, ready to set to to mill the lead-ins to the troughs. I decided to start with the steepest angle, some 52 degrees: Argh! First setback of the night, I can't get the quill low enough to cut the slot. Damn... have to find a long endmill from somewhere, or maybe I could mount it in a drill chuck. Not ideal, but I decided I couldn't be faffed with it. So... I re-set it flat, and milled out the endpoints for the drain holes. And now......... The moment you've all been waiting for........ It's........ D-DAY!!! The angle plate is moved to the edge of the table, and the part mounted atop it. However, it's too low down - there's not enough vertical travel to get the sump high enough on just the angle plate, so it's also sat on top of most of my collection of parallels - which are each 1/2" thick, plus or minus a gnat's cock. This is easily the scariest work-holding I've done so far. The feeler gauges stuck out of the wax (middle bottom of the pic) are to try to stop the huge expansion crack from closing up under the clamp & cracking. It wasn't 100% successful (I've lost a chunk from underneath), but that's not too bad as I will be shedding over 1" from the bottom of this piece before I'm finished anyway. So.... using the drill itself to line the piece up (can't get any DTIs in there), I then swap the drill out for a 16mm end mill. Using the end mill, I locate the start of each hole, and mill it as deep as I can. These will be used to hold the drill stable (the drill waggles about quite alarmingly if run in mid-air). And now, the bad news: To get the sump far enough away from the mill head to actually get the drill bit in behind it, I had to move the angle plate so it's literally clinging on to the edge of the table for dear life: The t-slots I'm using are outboard of the oil drain (so in the last inch of table), and I'm using the two right-most slots on the angle plate to hold it on. And even that's not enough, I've got to have the sump literally hanging off the end of the angle plate... If the last setup was scary, this one is doubly so. How that wax is not snapping under it's own weight, I do not know: Again, the drill is being used to align the job. It took me 45 mins to get to this point. Here's another angle of the same thing, which better reveals the true horror: I even had to take the clock off the wall, the sump gets that close. I had a total of about 2cms to spare... And then, disaster: It was STILL not far enough over! Aaargh! More manoevering. At least I knew what to do this time, and had the piece moved really quickly. So..... begin the first cut. It's just like drilling a normal hole, really, except the "peck" bit takes a lot longer, as you're feeding in & out on the X-axis. Thank goodness for power feed! Starting with the shortest hole, after only just 15 minutes I was rewarded with my first breakthrough: Next up, the LONG hole.... how would it go? See for yourself: :ddb: :D :) :ddb: :D :) :ddb: :D :) :ddb: :D :) :ddb: That tip is some 470mm deep in the work piece, and it's absolutely spot on target. To say I was chuffed would be a minor understatement. I confess, I actually danced a small jig, and may even have punched the air. I was going to stop at this point, & finish tomorrow; but despite the late hour, I pressed on because I didn't want to leave the sump hanging over the edge like that... So, one more hole, which was nearly a disaster - the drill was just touching the clamp, making a nasty clattering - so I had to move the clamp without moving the sump! Grr! Fortunately, all went well & the hole was completed without incident. And so, the final photo of the night: Although only 4mm apart, and 16mm in diamater (approximately), none of the holes have walked into each other, and they've all landed exactly where they should have done, and they're all exactly the right depth. It's 11pm, I've not eaten in 12 hours, I'm knackered, and probably the happiest person in the UK right now :) Until tomorrow.... (while the mill is canted over, I think I'll do a practice drill hole in aluminium, to see how that goes). |
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