Wife's Christmas gift

[ScrapMetal]

Warning: You'll have to pardon a number of things in this project post as I am pretty sure I'm working beyond my skill level at this point.

I only do rough drawings for my own benefit so they are just that, rough.

I actually saw a sculpture of this design at the church where my son has his Boyscout meetings. As my wife is involved actively with her church and she like this kind of stuff, I decided to make some thing similar for her.

Here is the drawing I made up showing the front (left) and side (right) views of the sculpture. I didn't include the base in the drawings as I haven't quite decided what I want to do there.



I started with a 3" x 3" x 6" piece of 6061 aluminum as that's the only thing I had large enough on-hand. After squaring it up I cut out the main cross profile then "thinned out" the cross to match the side (fish) profile width.



I intentionally left a couple of extra inches on the base to give me something to clamp/fixture to further on down the line. I will be trimming most of that off when I get closer to completion.

After giving it quite a bit of thought I decided to cut the slots in the cross before cutting the fish profile. I just figured it would be easier to work with while it was still "square".



I cut it straight away with a 1/4" endmill as I'm not building this for NASA and worried about tight tolerances (else I would have like to go with a 3/16" then expand it to spec.). It only has to look good in the end. I used as "standard" size endmill and had to slot in from one side then flip the piece and go in from the other. It all worked fairly well but I did discover that my mill badly needs to be re-trammed which resulted in the slots not meeting up real well. I repeat, "It only has to look good in the end."



This is as far as I got today. Tomorrow I'm going to start by re-tramming the mill and start to figure out how I'm going to get it fixtured on the rotary table. If worse comes to worse I'll just drill a hole in the base, run a T-bolt through it, and clamp the one end directly to the RT. I don't expect it to be too much of a problem. One place that will be a little more work will be the "tail" and getting those sharp narrow cuts to look right.

I'll post more when I have more.

Be gentle now,

-Ron

[Shawn]

She is going to love it. You are going to be golden for months! Your not planning a big machine tool purchase are you? If so your not only thoughtful, your brilliant.

Shawn

[ScrapMetal]

(12-19-2013, 01:57 AM)Shawn Wrote: She is going to love it. You are going to be golden for months! Your not planning a big machine tool purchase are you? If so your not only thoughtful, your brilliant.

Shawn

I am always "planning" a big tool purchase. Actually, I ruined my wife's surprise for me. She ordered a new Kurt D688 vise for me but it was too heavy for her to get it off the porch (where UPS left it). When I got home I brought it in. Same thing happened with a Te-Co fixture/clamp set she also got me. I'm living pretty good but I won't have much under the tree. Short answer is, she deserves as much as I can give her and then some.

-Ron

[TomG]

It's looking good Ron. Too bad you didn't start it sooner, I could have anodized it for you.

Tom

[ScrapMetal]

(12-19-2013, 06:39 PM)TomG Wrote: It's looking good Ron. Too bad you didn't start it sooner, I could have anodized it for you.

Tom

That would be a nice touch, too bad I procrastinated so long.

Once I get it cut out I'll decide what kind of finish it gets. Right now I'm thinking either polish it up or hit it with a sand blaster to give it a matte finish.

I wasn't able to get in to the shop today as I had to take the dog to the vet and pick the kids up from school. Didn't even get a chance to tram the mill.

Hopefully tomorrow,

-Ron

[ScrapMetal]

Between trying to work out some problems with tramming the mill and a Christmas get-together with some friends I only had a couple of hours to spend in the shop today.

I did get the piece fixtured on the RT and was able to get one side mostly cut out. Please pardon the pics as the lighting was terrible and it was tough to get a good angle on it...





I didn't have time to mill off the excess areas. That will be the first thing on the agenda tomorrow. I still haven't figured out what I'll be using to cut out the "wedge shape" where the "tail" meets the base (sorry, it's not shown in the pics). I used a 1/4" end mill to make the slot/cut because I wanted to get as close as possible. I thought I could then use a small end mill for the last quarter inch or so but I don't think I have anything smaller that's long enough for the job. I'll be sure to take some better shots tomorrow so you can see what I'm talking about.

-Ron

[PixMan]

That's pretty cool. She's going to love it, but I'm betting you'll have as much attachment to it as she does. ;)

It's aluminum. Can you do the "clean-up" with a die grinder and carbide burr?

[ScrapMetal]

(12-22-2013, 09:55 AM)PixMan Wrote: That's pretty cool. She's going to love it, but I'm betting you'll have as much attachment to it as she does. ;)

It's aluminum. Can you do the "clean-up" with a die grinder and carbide burr?

I'm not too sure about being "attached" to it. After all the stress of trying to get it drawn up, the kinks worked out, fixturing it properly, actually milling it, and the hand-work that I'm about to undertake with it (all above my "skill level" mind you ), I'll probably never want to see it again.

Here's where I'm at on it:









As you can see it's still a bit rough. After the wife goes to sleep tonight I'll head down to the basement and have a little "dremel" session with it. I still need to square off the slots on the inside of the cross. I had initially planned to do the horizontal ones with an end mill, turn it on it's side and use a square end mill. I gave up on that as at that depth and size I couldn't think of a good way to fixture it properly without a whole lot of work. I can hold it all by the base but the piece itself it fairly "springy". Seems a file/dremel/etc. would just be quicker.

One are that I still have concerns with is the "tail":



I am hoping to use some small drills to clear out the material near the base so I can get files and a hacksaw blade in there to cut a sharper angle.

Still have to figure out what to do with the base and how to finish/polish it up.

Overall, so far anyway (there's still time ), I haven't made too many glaring mistakes. Considering this has all been done on a manual mill without a DRO I've only turned the handle the wrong way twice. Once wa a major "ouch" but fortunately I just swapped the sides the cut outs were done from and the boo-boo went away. The other one I wasn't so lucky and took off a bit too much off one side of the inner tail area. I'm hoping to be able to cover it, or at least make it less noticeable (to me anyway), when I do the final finish.

Thanks,

-Ron

[Shawn]

Wow, that is looking great. Once it's all cleaned up and polished its going to be amazing. Nice work.

[Mayhem]

Nice work Ron. I wasn't sure what you were shooting for when I saw the sketch and the initial pics. Now I see it and that is some nice machining and some work holding challenges overcome I'm sure. When it is all cleaned up your wife will not even notice the imperfections the you mention. At the end of the day, only you will know they are there. Well, we do as well but I doubt any of us will tell her

She is going to be one happy lady.