CNC Gantry Painter Build Pics - Night 1

[vacpress]

Tonight i printed templates for the sides, and cut one with a scroll saw. took forever.. gonna goto school tomorrow to cut the other 3 with a bandsaw, and use their sanders to clean up the cuts and make all 4 side panels identical. to do this, i am going to put bolts through the axel holes, and bolt them all together before sanding down to size.. gotta read about polishing the edges of acrylic.... heres some photos.

this photo shows an old part for another machine with the wheels laid up next to it.

[vacpress]

I thought you guys might wanna see more of this gantry assembly. i decided not to use it because i want something a bit different for this. i will stick to my plans. i put lots of work into it though. its made of john Ks window channel, but used totaly different. i riveted a bunch of it together to for this structure, then painted it.. took an evening... then i mounted a bunch of poorly machined aluminum bearing blocks.. TAKE time when seting up your drills and cuts! its worth it.

[vacpress]

Heres 1 part cut, 1 part patterned.. The cut is SOO rough with the scroll saw... gotta have patience and wait till i can use a bandsaw for this... gonna sand all the parts true...

[vacpress]

heres 1 side laid on a bench

[teilhardo]

Wow Vac, I envy your speed. Looking good at this point.
By day 5 you'll have your own billboard on Madison avenue

[Konstantin]

By day 5 you'll have your own billboard on Madison avenue

And vacpress will rest on the seventh day.


He he. Nice work there.
Realy impressive.



Konstantin

[kcoaks]

Did you ever find anything out about polishing the cut sides of acrylic?

[vacpress]

i didnt get nearly as much as i wanted done. i had to stop cuz it was 2am and my roomies were like "why are you sawing?"

kcoaks- no. im gonna ask today at the school shop, maybe the shop leader guy knows.. if not, im sure its just a buffer wheel... i hate my buffer wheel though - it makes a very scary noise.

[High Seas]

Vacpress - when I was about your age (seems a while) in the sign shop we used a hooked knife to round over the edge of plex - but that was scary too! Also a wheel (sanding disk) hand held on a drill or belt sander - but then again on a sign 40 feet++ in the air you never notice the small imperfections.
I have seen flame-ploished and "melted edges" on some plastics - but control of the heat is important so you don't "flame" the project.
Maybe a beat up iron from goodwill/sallys?
Progress is amazing! Keep it up!
cheers - Jim

[Bloy2004]

Originally posted by vacpress I thought you guys might wanna see more of this gantry assembly.

...just wanna see MORE!

[publitime]

vac

Whene you need parts in plexi ore something i will mill theme for you.
I have made a big cnc milling machine.

At this moment i didn't found a way for cnc color controlling.
Did you found something yet?

[vacpress]

publi - i think i did find something out. basically a mix of image processing software to get the pics ready and in a basic "Raw" format. then a program that takes that data and reads it.. it turns out we dont have to "mix" paint.. not really. gotta get the dots small enough that the colors are made up of small dots - like a page in a magazine

as for getting parts machined - that would be great if i didnt have access to a very good AXYZZ machine at school. i cut some parts with a bandsaw and think they suck. so i am gonna get a new piece of plexi and use the CNC here to do it on wed.

if you want the 3D files to build along - that would be very cool.