Recent Posts

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Metal Stuff / Re: A Tale of Two Castings
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 10:20:19 PM »
It occurs to me now after thinking about this a lot over the years that if there was a little lip at the bottom of a crucible instead of a rounded corner, that would trap the drips.

A thin wafer instead of a thick pedestal might serve to dam the flow, and if it adheres would be easier to lift with the crucible when pouring
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Project Logs / Re: The Return of No. 83, a Hot Air Engine
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 10:13:18 PM »
Working on my foundry is slowing me down on No. 83. I'm thinking about doing an iron casting to replace the brass power piston cylinder and displacer guide block. Foundry was in a sad condition, but have made big strides over the last few days

Back at it shortly.......
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Metal Stuff / Re: Simple steel flasks
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 10:09:57 PM »
If my math is right that would trim 25 ounces from each flask, or 50 ounces from a pair used as cope and drag.

Might be worthwhile....
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Metal Stuff / Re: Simple steel flasks
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 10:04:29 PM »
Twelve years later and these flasks seemed to have gained weight! Well since that's not possible, I think I've lost some oomph in that time. I'm thinking about cutting down some of the flanges to lose a little weight. Ironman's (luckygen1001's) aluminum flasks are only 1/4" wide. They must be very light.

If I had an unlimited supply of aluminum, I'd be tempted to mold exactly his style of flask. But scrap aluminum is harder to come by these days. Seems every new kid on the YouTube block is melting aluminum, and basically just making ingots. For no apparent reason or use at all, except to stockpile it. So I am keeping my aluminum supply for more important projects.

Back to the steel flasks -- wonder how much weight I'd save if I cut the flanges to say 1/2" wide. Would it be worthwhile? Would they warp? hmmm......  :smart:
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How do I?? / Re: How do I get better at welding?
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 09:47:50 PM »
Received the lens today and I do think it will help. I was woried it wouldn't fit inside the helmet because it was thicker than the plastic inner shield, but the spring wire clamps did hold it in. Sitting at the dining room table (not actually welding yet) the focused area seemed just a little bit closer than optimal, but definitely usable. I ordered 1,75 diopters, and probably could have got 1.5, but we'll see when I try welding.

Haven't added a leather backlight shield yet. Looks like it will need to be in my chin area, since most of the light is coming up from there instead of in back, with my helmet. Looking forward to trying this all out! Thx Andrew again.

I did have another weird idea. Wonder if it would help any to wear sunglasses for say ten minutes before welding to dark adapt one's eyes?
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Software Tools / Re: Non planar slicer for 3d models
« Last post by ddmckee54 on April 19, 2025, 08:47:54 PM »
My hat's off to this guy.  It makes my head hurt just thinking about trying to code something like that.

Don
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Software Tools / Re: Non planar slicer for 3d models
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 07:59:24 PM »
Interesting. Thanks Bill.  :beer:

I'm mostly a hand crank metal and wood hobbyist, but last year I did buy a very modest 4" square 3D printer, mainly for making letters and numbers that I can stick to wooden patterns. Plastic letters can be bought for that purpose sometimes, but they are hard to find, sometimes expensive, and extremely limited in typestyles and sizes when you do find them.

So that got me into the software slicer stuff. I've used Cura, that's it. The above is very interesting, but I'm very low on the totem pole of 3D printing -- it's practically 2D, so not something that will have much use for me. But hats off for the creativity and complexity mastered.
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Member Videos / Re: Frequent Video Posters, Please Pay It Forward!
« Last post by vtsteam on April 19, 2025, 07:50:16 PM »
Thanks kindly, Phil!  :beer:
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Software Tools / Non planar slicer for 3d models
« Last post by BillTodd on April 19, 2025, 11:54:13 AM »
I'm posting this here because I think it is a genuine advance in 3d printing and because is is a singularly impressive piece of work.

This guy,  Joshua Bird, has written the hardest part of a 3d slicer for non-planar printing.

Planar printing is the typical flat layer by layer that pretty much all printers have used to date.
Non-planer allows an object to be printed with minimal supports and allows better layer orientation for stronger parts.

Prior to Joshua's work, non-planar print tool paths had to be mostly had coded or simplified to multiple planes.

eature=shared
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Member Videos / Re: Frequent Video Posters, Please Pay It Forward!
« Last post by hermetic on April 19, 2025, 11:23:40 AM »
Guilty as charged sir! I will try to do better!
Phil
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