I was just admiring your handiwork again this morning and decided that even if it doesn't work, I would leave it in place because it looks so cool.

Alan is going to make it work - I can't see him giving up on it! :)

Its working!

Having taken Geralds cautionary warning in mind, I changed my plan for the down pipe, I made up a collar that is supported by three uprights attached to the Y car. The flexible pipe down to the dust foot then only has to move vertically. The down pipe from the boom is just above the collar with the two connected by flexible duct. There is some rotational movement at this point but the flex duct allows it. This way the force applied to the boom to move it by the Y car has less slop. There is a little bit of momentum to get it moving from stand still but once travelling it all seems fine.


I was a bit concerned that that high collar may want to cause a tipping action on the Y car when pulling away, but even with me holding the gantry and pulling on the top of the collar (much more force than will be exerted by the boom) I was not able to lift the front rollers of the Y car off the track. ( for those concerned what the effect of an extended Z slide - unless you run the router against a very solid object without the motor running you have nothing to worry about - the Y car will not tip over)


This is only a mock up of the dust foot in MDF to test configuration (based on JR's design - thank you Sir) I must still get "skirt" material but it is sucking up most of the dust at the moment. The front section comes off for bit access and is held in place by fender washers on both sides of the main foot.


This ugly beast is my dust extractor - made it myself out of bits and pieces some years ago long before I even knew what a MechMate was. The fan and housing was robbed from a ride on mower and the rest was welded and formed in the workshop. I even sewed (using my Wifes new sewing machine) the lower dust bug up over the weekend as the original has been annexed by persons unknown. (if its got a motor, I can operate it! :rolleyes:)


Close up of the action, pardon the bit of sandpaper holding the job into the jig, I told my machinist to trim the boards to EXACTLY 300mm wide, when it was a sloppy fit and I questioned him he said "Oh, I thought you said 298..." :mad::mad::mad:.

That is SUPER sharp Alan. I bet it looks really cool with that stuff moving all at once.

Alan, I have the same dustfoot design, and used PET ( used 2 litre Coke bottle) as skirting material....it's a bit stiff, but have so far worked or me

Did a bit of playing tonight...

Cool Alan. I've wanted to make that same shelf unit too. Looks great!!

That is 3D work without direct-drive motors - not bad :)

Nice stuff!

Nothing wrong with our direct motors. Well done Alan

Very nice. I can't wait for mine.

I like the bookshelve, see you next week, will be in town from Wednesday.

Nice work Alan, thanks for sharing. :)

A quick job for one of my suppliers (My first export order...:D)

I see you also went and visited PTR in Woodstock.Better watch Kobus don`t like it when we do small cutting.What was your feeding speed?

Actually I used a ProTech 30deg V groove I picked up at Hardware Centre CT. Feed speed was 1000mm/min, time to machine about 8 min. I also machined the bevel base with the MechMate. Clamped the block upside down at an angle and ran the head up and down across the block feeding Z down a little bit at a time manually - like one would do on a milling machine, writing the code would have taken me longer :p.

Hey you guys, what about RETURN on INVESTMENT...you are not suppose to have FUN
Pragtig

Beautiful work Alan.

Copy from another thread :
I have just returned from Johannesburg where I was offered a position at a very large fruniture manufacturer managing the maintenance at two plants (turned it down even though the salary offered was astranomical by my standards - all the money in the world cant justify an abusive boss!)
Alan ….. Felicitation on your values :o;)
Money helps making MM and pay important bills. But values & principals make a person. He's one of those not their yet !

very nice work on the trophy..:)

Now for some return on the investment...:)

Challenge for the week (actually it will take about a month at 8 hours per day). Machine a steak board from material supplied; outside cut to shape and a 3D ramp with groove to catch the juices without costing too much?


The original sample as supplied had a ramp machined with a ball nose cutter. the ramp runs along the length of the board from the surface down to a depth of about 10mm with a 30mm border around the edge of the board. Initial estimates of the cost to machine 900 of these was quite high as the 3D machining would be a slooow process, so I had to come up with another solution.

I decided to do the job in two stages, stage one would be the outside and groove at the end (actually the groove first of course) and stage two would be the ramp.


To machine stage one required a fairly simple jig that held the board at the bottom edge and at the two corners that would be cut off. A vacuum would have been easier, but I don't have a sufficiently powerful pump. There are three cuts, #1 for the groove in two passes, #2 for the right side of the board from the bottom edge up to the handle and #3 for the left edge up to the handle both in two passes with an 8mm tungsten slot drill - speed 2000mm/min. Doing it this way in seperate paths prevents the corners breaking out as the grain changes direction. its a little slower but with a better end result. The hold down clamps are 20 x 5 mild steel flat held down by furniture screws attached to rumper nuts fixed in the jig from below. Cycle time about 4 min (I could shorten that if I make a better clamp system that locks down faster but there is a height restriction because of my dust foot)


To cut the ramp required a slightly more complicated jig. I decided to hold the work at an angle and just do a straight pocket cut in the area required. The ramp angles were calculated by doing a drawing in CAD of the section and then cut on the machine. Slots were also cut in the jig base for location purposes. There are two ramp supports and one edge locating fence. At the end of the ramps are hold down fingers as part of the jig and two toggle clamps with modified feet to hold the bottom edge down. Cycle time is also about 4 min but most of that is actual cutting as the toggle clamps make for very fast change overs. This is cut with a 12mm slot drill also at 2000m/min.


The machine is running from 08:00 to 16:45 everyday with breaks at tea time and lunch time. What a pleasure to watch it racking up the Rands at every pass.

The Bosch router that I was a little concerned about at the start regarding heat is cool to the touch at the end of the day (hardly above ambient). The cooling fan produces an extremely strong blast of air that obviously aids in cooling. A cool tool means longer bearing life - I like it;).

When cutting the ramp the X motors get quite hot to the touch, (not too painfull to hold but still within reason) the other two are only just slightly warm.

The dust extraction system is working very nicely, it does not put any strain on the Y car that I can see and follows the machine around like an obedient dog. I had to take it apart at the main pivot to remove a plug of wood slivers and fluffy offcuts this afternoon so I think I may have to change that elbow for one with a clean out panel. This is the first time it has happened but I think it is because of the pocket cutting of the ramp, it produces quite long wooly bits that get sucked up by the foot.

Sweet fixture Alan. The thing I've always loved about these machines is they are so raw and simple to the point that there are very few boundaries and the only limit usually is ones creativity in the process. While simple it shows if you can't find a reasonable program for the part think out side the box to find a simpler, better way to achieve the same results in less time.

Alan,

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.:) So how many steak boards can you cut in an 8 hour day...if it's not proprietary?

Alan,
Excellent job. So how many are you able to do in a day? Im surprised the customer did not want a name or logo engraved in the board as well.

Gee, I didn`t know the MM can eat and have tea !:)Nice going

900, this sounds like 'WORK' Nice going

Nice order congrats. pity about all the clamping on off (painful). Job like that with my Makita 3612c (MM1) the bearings will need a change after 30-40 days wear and tear. After time the housing for base and topside for both bearings need replacement to reduce play and vibrations (6months). We keep a full spare armature, top bearing housing/locator and brushes on the shelf for a quick 20min change over before sending the old armature for a +-2week service.

I can do about 100 loadings a day which equates to 50 complete units per day. 900 units = 18 days without any holdups.

Hennie, thankfully the MechMate does not eat or drink but the operator seems to insist on it...can't understand why :rolleyes:

Alan, something that I have done the other day with the same thing of having to load and then restart is that I had the machine cut 3 of the same items along the y-axis.I had it cut 3 items and as the machine were at no 2 I reloaded the first one thus when it got to finish no3 and it went back to home I just started it again.It saved a lot of time.Talking about tea?I think it is time.

My business has been keeping me very busy lately (busy trying to get more work!!!) so have not posted much here, but I have managed to get my website up at last - only an interim version but have a look and give some feedback please (visual appeal, loading times etc) tufftoys.co.za

Nice selection there Alan. Speed from my work that is sometimes slow is good...nothing wrong with you server and page setup. I find Hennie's pages very slow from here.

I think your prices are to cheap... You must be buying wood from a oke like me to get things done for those prices.:)

Site not uploaded yet?:

Second attempt worked okay

Okay, you were probably changing the index.html when I looked.

I think you need pics at the home page and next level . . . . . it took 3 clicks before I could see your products and that is just too many clicks for some people.

Kobus you are used to slow

Thanks for the comments guys, Gerald, the front page is not to my liking yet so will get a make over soon.

To the SA guys, check out the latest issue of the "Home Handyman Magazine" from page 40 onwards - I've been published :cool:

Alan

You should post a link to the article on your web site, if it's on line, or scan it and put it on your web site if it's allowed. I think it would be good for business.


( second post, first one didn't show up after a couple of hours )

Been doing some product development - made a collection of side tables and a wine rack system

Attachment 9410

They are all done with MDF, the coloured ones on the left are basecoated with clear than sprayed with tinted lacquer.

Dave, the article is not business related, but hopefully the start of a new line of income for me, magazine article writer...:)

A few jobs I have been up to lately

Firstly a presentation shield, machined in Rhodesian Teak (I only did the engraving - the client had already cut the shape by the time the job got to me)
Attachment 9774

Proyotype media shelf sized to accept cd's and dvd's
Attachment 9776 Attachment 9775

Attachment 9777
Tabbed joints - all knock down

Landed a nice job to replace existing indoor benches at the local casino complex - the originals had been made with MDF but have not fared very well in a very demanding environment - very high traffic.

They are a modified version of Lutyens bench without the extra curve that it usually has in the back rail - again to match the ones they are replacing, I would have preferred to make them accurate to the traditional design but the customer who pays gets to make the decisions ;)

Besides the obvious cutting of the complex shapes I tried to do as many of the mortises on the MM as possible (all the simple one were done on a horizontal mortiser) In total there are nearly 100 joints in this bench (200 mortises - using loose tennons) The seat slats are attached with pocket hole screws from below so no visible screws or plugged holes anywhere to be seen from above.

Attachment 9778
Front legs with mortises and dowel holes.

Attachment 9779
Cutting the back rail.

Attachment 9780
Legs and rails for two benches.

Attachment 9781
Top rail glue up.

Attachment 9782
Back sub assembly glue up - starting to get tricky...

Attachment 9783
Main glue up - not to be attempted without doing a dry run first.

Attachment 9784
Assembled bench after staining.

Attachment 9785
Completed bench with AC Lacquer.

Attachment 9786
Close up of logo engraved into the front legs.

Nice Alan...I like it, pity they wanted it stained that dark.

How many benches are you doing ?

Alan, amazing job!