Those JOKERS took my name and number and promised to phone back.....they have to phone their suppliers he said.... still waiting.

Ok Ok I know it is not the right stuff, but for now the price was right and it works ok for me.

After a lot of promises and inflated prices for dust pipes I got hold of this Alu. type AIR DUCT pipe...10 meters for R 57.00 + Vat. Went to Hardware Centre and got a Alu. Blast Gate..stripped this thing in 2 and fitted the one half to my dust foot. What a pleasure to be able to sit and watch BBB do it's thing without a dust mask.

The round THING my wife got hold of and painted it. These are little thing that I play with to get to grips with design / cutter setup. Quickly learned that a simple circle design with only single lines can produce different patterns when you use different cutters and different depth setting.

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Nice going Kobus, not sure what kind of life you will get out of that pipe, the wall is very thin and the dust is quite abrasive. Have you tried Austro, they have a big range in stock, the price is not cheap (Swiss manufacture) but I can assure you the quality is very good. I tried various "cheap" options in the factory, but I spent my time replacing lengths regularly, the Swiss one outlasts the others by up to 6 times longer (should last you until second retirement...:D)

Thanks Alan, As this is not a production machine I hope that this stuff will last a while until I make some money and buy the proper pipe....but for this price, I can replace a few of these lengths.

Kobus, we ran 110mm "rigid" sewerage pipe until above the center of the table, and then dropped only about 3m of the flexible expensive stuff down. We get blockages when there are thin long offcuts mixed with star-shaped scrap. Flipping the fan over reduced the kinks for blockages.

I had a plan like this as well, but what fitting did you use to join the 110mm rigid PVC pipe to the 100 mm flex. pipe or is your flex pipe also 110 mm?
I don't have enough room between BBB and my roof, and made an arm that swing from left to right following the gantry as it travels up and down the X - axis..still need to put some curtain rail on this swing arm to take up the slack when I get closer to the wall with the Z-Car.

The 100mm flex pipe fits inside the 110mm socket, with some filler/sealer goo, and the two wires you see to take the strain off the joint.

Just BECAUSE I CAN.......

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Vryf dit in ! ( rub it in ).
Seems like this is a challenge?:)

Kobus,
There is a free program on cnczone called spiro that will allow you to create swirls and more complex designs similar to your picture if you are interested.

Thanks Jason, will go and have a look.

After playing around cutting small and sometimes bigger things with Cut2D and Mach3 I decided it's now time to do something I wanted to do for a very very long time....Making a wall clock with wooden gears. Bought a 2 meter x 220mm piece of Beech and cried when I had to pay for it....this is after I realized I had to plane it from 25mm to 10mm for the gear thickness...Lost more than half my wood just because the guys don't stock this type of wood in anything thinner.

After playing with TABS on the outer gear points, I decided against it. Even after carefull sanding I did not get my gear 100%. I then decide to use some of my left over double sided tape from the racks and stuck the wood to the table. This worked great apart from one small gear that came loose right at the end....But I have a fix for that tonight. I will stick it onto the table with tape, then do the centre hole and put a screw through the hole into the table, then cut the outside. Reminder to myself......DON't cut 4mm deep / pass with a 3.2mm straight bit.....small mistake on my part while setting up cut in Cut2D....It took the abuse for a while and then...SNAP.....no more cutting noise, only router noise....on that I NEED a Spindle...neigbour can's sleep with the noise I am making.

The rest of the clock body and parts will be made from KIAAT which I have about 2 cubs of.

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Hey Kobus, hasn't anybody told you yet . . . . you are not supposed to cut such small precise things with:

- rack & pinion......you must use ball-screws
- direct-drive motors......you must use gearboxes or belts
- cheap MotionKing motors.....you must use Japanese motors
- steel gantries and cars.....you must use 20/20 alu
- v-rollers on angle iron.....you must use linear bearings
- out in Africa.....you must use a machete and Leatherman knife!!!:D:D

Thanks for helping to kill the stereotypes!

Thats going to look great once it's up on the wall, are you going to be taking orders? ;)

Don't you have bandsaw (or a good friend with one) then you could have rewsawn the beech into two pieces (another posibility is to buy 38's and rip those down if you wont get the required thickness from the 25's).

Thanks Guy's, I listened to my grandfather...he always said...'n boer maak 'n plan... a farmer makes a plan... I believe in this million doller design that did not cost me a million dollars to build to do what I want it to do. Most of my ideas at present will be small things, but the day I want to cut a complete sheet I am able to do it on old BBB.

Alan, the next thing I must get is that bandsaw...thinking of the one that can tilt the head vertical and horizontal...cutting steel and wood.

One further thing about double sided tape....I did notice that the 3.2mm bit got clogged up as it cut into this tape. Do you know where in Johannesburg I can buy this ultra thin white double sided tape? The one I am using is the black Automotive type...also thin...nish, but it does get caught in the bit.

Call 3M South Africa to find out who stock their products.

Kobus
I am "gobsmacked" or "utterly astonished" very nice man!

Picking up the tape this afternoon. 1 Roll is about 50 meters...called VHB Tape 9473 from 3M distributor in Benoni called NUTAPE.

Where have you bought those gears?:D:D
Unbelievable what the machine can do.

In the FAR EAST.....East of JoBurg...Brakkies se Pan :p

Anybody know where I can buy (in SA) some rod and tubing that fit into each other. The clock plans show 6mm rod and some places it runs in a 10mm O/D tube.

What I could find so far is 6.36 mm Alu. rod but the tube available off shelf is 12.7mm O/D with a wall of 3.18...this only gives me I/D of 6.34 mm.....whish I had a lathe.....:mad:.....Alan, that will be my next tool I buy...first the Bandsaw, then the Lathe

Hydraulic tubing O.D. 8 x 1 wall or O.D. 10 x 1,5 wall

Benoni's only claim to fame is the fact that Charlize Theron grew up there.

I was also born there, that is why I was named " Koning"
Regards

"whish I had a lathe...."

You could just fit another (really small) motor on the end of the MechMate... turn all the stock you want.

As good as those gears look, I imagine the precision would be pretty good.:D

Nice work, Kobus...

Ek is sommer trots op jou ( I am proud of you ).What did you pay for the tape.Send me your postal address I use sellotape same thing probably cheaper I will send you some rolls.One thing don`t try it on 3mm mdf it sticks to well will breaks parts. easyest thing to make a jig with when you use a hand router. There is a company in Boysens If my memory stuffs me around i think they are called metel land or metal world.I also use this tape to make shaker doors with some q/set wood glue works great.

Outstanding work Kobus!! I've been interested in clockmaking also. Good luck with it.

This weekend no action on the BIG BLUE FRONT. With summer just around the corner it was time to get the roof on the last part of the house. We have rain in the summer and this season I would like to sit on my STOEP and to BRAAI (BBQ) anytime I wish. With my eldest son studying in Pretoria (Millwright apprentiship) he was not available to help, and therefore I had to get up the ladder, down the ladder, up the ladder, down the ladder......toooooo many times. Today I can feel it, putting trusses together 2 meters high and then picking them up one by one was quit a job. Coming week I will finish the rest of the structure so as to be ready next weekend to put the tiles on.....hopefully my son will visit.


And I need to work on my clock.....why is a day so short

I am also on the roof today...waterproofing the parapets.

Luckily it seems we have no fear of heights... Good luck with the job. In the Cape I suppose you need to keep the rain and wind out of the house.

I would have built the braai first!:)Thanks got it today.

Does everyone in SA have a beard and a pool?:D

We need a pool to cool down, because a beard can generate some heat :rolleyes:

Just to show that I have not left this world for another....poor old BBB is sitting in the workshop getting NO attention, but first things first and the BOSS told me to finish the roof first. This was one heck of a job doing it by yourself, but when it came to hoisting more than 300 rooftiles the BOSS jumped in and helped me.

Still need to close the front part of the trusses and then do nice cutouts on BBB for the ballustrades that will follow around the end of the stoep.

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By the way...Happy Birthday uncle Gerald,...see you closed that thread wile I was offline doing other stuff. In about 3 years I will catch up on you...just stand still for a while...:eek:

Today was hopefully the last of the BIG jobs around the house.....famous last words... We finished the roof on the front stoep/veranda. Finishing of the back roof will be done next weekend.

Late this afternoon I tried my hand at some INLAY work.

BBB table is also usefull for general woodworking. Here Pierre is sanding pieces from an old Oak cupboard that I restored.

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Pierre, daardie is 'n pragtige foto! Kan jy in die skoolvakansie hier in Kaapstad kom werk vir 'n bietjie sakgeld? :)

I've lived in a 100 year old house and my current house is new. The "house" work never stops. Maybe it's me. :)

Hey Kobus,

What's your "technique" for doing inlays?

Greg

Gerald. You know Pierre is only seven years old, so I will have to come with him.

Greg with cut2D inlay is very easy. I select the flower then tell the program to cut on the Outside of the line on my light wood. Then Pocket the same flower outline. If your feed speed is slow, the first piece should fit inside the second piece. If not you do a second cut selecting the Inside line. I did this with a 2.80 mm straight bit.

Thanks Kobus,

Just wondering. The interface edges looked quite good. I thought you might be using a 60 degree V bit and finishing up with surfacing using an end mill bit.