This will close out this portion of the new machine for now. I did a run of 13 windows. Ya, lucky number 13.

I was getting terrible vibration even with the feed rate cut back to 30% of one inch per minute. I still haven't figured out if that's what my CAM software means. Anyway this seemed to work for a while. I still had an annoying vibration at certain spots in the cut. I tightened down the motor clamp a bit more and that seemed to help, but the brass still vibrated a bit. Only being held down by the clamps on the outside of the piece seemed to be causing the problem. So on the next piece I used the 3M adhesive. That seemed to quiet it down even more. Only problem was I had to totally remove the clamps to pry the piece off the jig with a putty knife. So on the 13th piece I just stuck it down with the adhesive. I figured if the cutter broke I already had my 12 window frames. And that's how I got the 13th piece. It worked out great.

Now came the next problem. Cleaning the adhesive off the cut part. Duck (yes that's what it says on the roll Duck Tape) works wonders. I stuck it on to the side with the adhesive still on it and pulled it off. I had to do that once or twice to remove all the adhesive. Worked great. Then I used a sharp box cutter knife and separated all the frames. Pictures of the procedure follow.

















So this closes out the first chapter on getting this machine to perform. This is not a milling machine, yes it can be used as a mill but only small projects. Anything over an 1/8" cutter would vibrate this machine off the table. I think I've located all the spots that cause the vibration. One being the motor. The stator is not balanced as is the plastic fan inside it. You can see the runout when turned by hand. At 10,000 RPM that sets up quite a bit of vibration. Plus the long spindle of the motor that is also used as the tool holder. It's way to long for any kind of heavy work. Plus the machine is not a ridged machine like a cast iron milling machine weighing several thousand pounds. It can do the kind of work I've tasked for it, but any heavy milling will be reserved for the Grizzly mini-mill and the Bridgeport. I think it will do well for engraving, an adventure I need to go on yet. You can also add a laser cutter to it for cutting and engraving. One problem here is it will need some kind of enclosure to contain the smoke. Before I even think of getting a laser for this machine I have three other items lined up for it. One will be using a Deep Cut knife from the Cricut that the scrapper crowd uses to cut styrene, cardboard and possibly thin wood. A second test will be to use the machine to make rivets in brass or styrene and the third test will be to see if I can get it to emboss thin aluminum for corrugated siding. I'll document the work in this thread as the adventure continues.

Hope who that read this little adventure found it useful and interesting. Stay tuned more to come.

Bernd

Bernd, your perseverance and patience is admirable!

Thanks Bruce. Part of that perseverance and patience was learned at work when working on bringing machines to life after they had been assembled. It was always a great pleasure to find something wrong with a machines performance and run the engineer through the wringer. I really don't get frustrated. It's a challenge to find the problem and getting it fixed. That part of the job I enjoyed working with A-holes was something else and the political air made me want to leave the place many times.

Bernd

Wow... Bernd.. you are the Professor !! I might come up with the $$$ to join your class, but with my very limited schooling.. I doubt that I would succeed as well as you have shown with your work here. Will you be working in your shop today, or just enjoying your progress? BTW... HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!

Rich

Thanks for the birthday wish Rich. Much appreciated.

I know what I know due to over 30 years in working in the machining business, plus many years from Dad being a tool and die maker. I think that has a lot to do with it, plus I enjoy working with stuff like this. Kind of like you and building buildings in wood and other materials. It's fun and challenging. You always learn something new.

Come up for class, information is free, what you do with it will at times save you money. I like to share (show off ) what I can do and hope others can learn something or even try the same.

Bernd

https://railroad-line.com/member/5164-pennman hey read my reply.

For the last several weeks while working on getting the window frames designed and cut out, I've been working on a holder for the Cricut Deep Cut Knife that I picked up up last year at Hobby Lobby. I was originally going to use it in the Sherline, but after purchasing the router I figured I try it out on the router since it has a larger work area than the Sherline.

First was to come up with design to hold the knife. It's spring loaded and held in by a magnet. Quite ingenious I might add. So, here's what I came up with.



A two-part aluminum holder. When assembled it holds the knife holder in place. There are many ways that I could have designed this, but this was the fastest to make. Maybe someday I'll design a more sophisticated holder. For now, this will have to do.

So once assembled the tool holder gets inserted in where the spindle motor would normally get mounted.



Tighten the motor clamp.



I've learned to handle the very sharp knife with a pair of needle nose pliers. Have gotten bit a few times.



The hole in the top piece of the holder allows you to push down on the knife holder so it will stick out to remove it from the magnetic knife holder.



So that's it for now. Next will be the material holding table. Right now, I've got in mind to use two 1/2" thick MDF boards. One as a mounting surface and the other to hold the material. Kind of like I did with the window frame jig I made previously.

I'm going to draw up the tool holder in CAD and offer them to modelers who, if they decide to try one of these machines, might want to 3D print a holder or machine one like I did and can make one without having to figure out dimensions.

That's it for now. Have to start on the windows on the engine house and get those done.

Until next time.

Bernd

I figure if I started today, to get that 30+ years experience background I'd be well into the record books of oldest farts fiddling with fabulous fabricating facilities....and this stuff would all be obsolete. And if family background figured in, i'd have forgotten it all anyhow.

Truly interesting and mesmerizing seeing all this stuff.

Thanks Karl. More to interesting stuff come.

It's kind of unfortunate that it takes a while to learn all this stuff if you haven't done it all your life.

Bernd

Hey Karl, I think Bernd is the "Go to" Man for all of these neat machines and certainly so.

Rich

Thanks Buddy. Class starts when you buy your machines.

Bernd

Finally got the router to cut out a part from .040" thick chip board. Took several tries till I got the CAM software to do what I wanted it to do, not what it wanted to do. Each line took 5 cuts to get through the chip board. I took .010" deep cut on each pass. The extra .010" made sure it cut all the way through. Takes a little over seven minuets to cut out this side. What your looking at is the Critter Shed that I believe either Bruce or George posted way back when on a Build Challenge. I'm going to be building that using the router to cut out the walls when I get it working perfectly. For now I've got it so I know what to do to program it. I need to refine some hold down clamps and possibly some kind of roller on either side of the cutter to hold down the stock that it's cutting. Once the knife is at full depth when it pulls up it pulls the stock with it.

So more work to do, but for now I'm happy that it will do this much. Here's a picture of the cut out wall. It did have one goof up. It's when it went from the door cut out to the roof line cut out. Seems it didn't retract the cutter. Time to trouble shoot.



Bernd

Cool!

On that first test piece with the cut across on the top right of the door. Apparently the cutter knife must have pulled out of the holder. It's held in by a magnet so any force the holds on to the knife with more force than the magnet will pull the knife out.

So I was curious to see if that was the problem so I cut another piece of chip board. And it looked good. So next attempt was to see how styrene would do. Holding it down was going to be a problem. Especially using a small piece. No way to use clamps. So I used some 3M double sided adhesive. Worked great except for the clean up of the sticky adhesive. When pulled up off the MDF it stuck to the styrene and not the wood. I used a paper towel soaked in denatured alcohol to wipe off the adhesive.

The styrene is .020" thick. Again five passed per cut. Trouble was getting it off the wood. If there would have been any sort of small delicate parts, they would have broke. So a better holding method must be designed. For now at least I know that the router/engraver will cut out parts with a Cricut deep cut knife.

A couple more photos. The first shows the machine in action. The second picture shows the short cuts used to align the cutter in the direction I want it to go. The third show the comparison of the second chip board piece and the first styrene piece cut, plus some of the adhesive stuck to the MDF.







Next I've got to come up with some type of hold down for any type of material without the use of an adhesive. That may take some time.

Bernd

Success! That might have been a structure that George posted.

Nice work squaring these brass frames!
The task at hand will surely have positive results!