I used a similar wire holder to that to begin with. It works fine for cutting things with little or no taper but not so well for things with a lot of taper like airplane wings. My machine needs to allow the wire to change length up to about 20" at the maximum. Also, I don't like it when the tension changes all the time. With the small diameter inconel wire it will break easily when you get too much tenson on the spring. I'm building a bow that will hold the wire and keep the tension constant. The machine will hold the bow fixed at one end and allow the other end to slide back and forth so the length can change.
I used my TIG welder to weld all the pieces of the machine together. I originally built it to weld thin stainless steel sheet metal for experimenting with pulse jet engines. No, it won't weld Aluminum, it's just a DC machine. It will weld just about anything else though. Now I have a Harbor Frieght TIG welder which works pretty well (still no aluminum though). My homemade one actually works better for really small stuff but the Harbor Freight one works better for thicker stuff.  |