Had a crack at some moulds for carbon fibre rudders this weekend.  Finally getting a chance to use he machine for what I originally designed it to do.

Started out with two laminated sheets of 16mm MDF (32mm total)

Roughing pass with a 12.7mm straight flute router bit,

Then in with the 12mm ball mill.

Second half we just went straight in with the 12mm ball mill

We sanded and painted the mounds with epoxy and machined then again to the same profile the following day.

This finishing pass was 1.5mm step over with a 12mm ball mill at 45deg.

The moulds now require a hand sand and polish to bring them up to a good finish.  The section is a NACA63012A

New Desk

Its hard to do design work when you don't have a decent sized desk.  So why not make one? I was thinking of something with plenty of storage and is inspired by engineering concepts.

Engine Hoist Trolley

So needed a trolley that would fit between the legs of my engine crane so I could move my new/old metal lathe around.  Since I now have a CNC router, why not.  I also had a go at V-carving for engraving, which worked a treat.

Lost Foam Casting

This is something we started playing around with before we moved to making the CNC router.  Now that we have the router, we have access to patterns for sand casting or lost foam investment casting :)

The background of the first image shows the yellow foam shape pressed into the sand.  The furnace is made from an old 8kg gas bottle with refractory material typically used for pizza ovens.  The burner is a home made gas burner.

The casting was pretty messy, but it cleaned up alright with a grinder,

It made a nice lamp when coupled with a $20 lamp from kmart and a gear shaft from my mates Holden Astra gearbox that he blow up.  (Parts of the casing were melted down to form the base).

Having a go at some timber in-lay

My girlfriend and I decided we needed a shoe chest for the end of our bed.  So we draw something up and had a go.

Was pretty happy with the end result.

Engraving Carbon Fibre

I decided I needed a new, unique name plate for my desk at work.

I practiced on some aluminium first and was very happy with the clarity of the engraving.

I then needed to machine a nice and level base for the panel.  As any deviation in the surface directly effects the quality of the engraving.  The carbon fibre is some cheap cosmetic panels about 2mm thick from ebay.
The cutter is 60° included angle single flute, solid carbide.  The tip width is about 0.5mm.  Spindle speed was 24,000 RPM with a feed rate of about 600mm/min.  The trimming was done with a 1/8" carbide grouter remover bit from dremel.  (carbide grit burr)

New VFD enclosure, how does it go with aluminium?

Trial cuts on some aluminium off cuts seemed pretty good.



The panels cut well with a 3.2mm cutter at 18000 RPM with a feed rate of about 2000mm/min.  The depth of cut was limited to about 0.5mm as the machine isn't terribly stiff at the moment.



The 200 odd 2mm holes drilled extremely well.  One drill bit lasted the whole run.  Turns out the correct speeds and feeds make a huge difference.