take your time & get well soon, that swine flu can be a pig to shake off. Hank
Take your time to get better otherwise a foggy brain might cause a problem that might not be noticed until much later. Then the problems become compounded to fix or could become a safety factor. You have come so far to this point, better to be safe than sorry.
Right. It's time to slow down a bit and take it easy if you're not feeling well. Sometimes it helps to take a few days off in any case.
When I see how much work it is to design and build one's own sidecar, I can see why they sell for anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 new.
You are doing a really terrific job, by the way. Like you and many others, one of my great loves is workng metal by hand, machining and welding to make various things. When you are working on a project ilke this, the hours fly by. It's not work but rather a labor of love.
In keeping with that, I just sold my former Harbor Freight Mill Drill and upgraded to a new (for me) Webb milling machine that weighs in at a mere 3,500 pounds! It needs some work but it's all good fun. Below is a picture of the machine when it was in a warehouse in Carson City, Nevada. Fortunately I got to it before the machinery dealers! LOL.
Keep up the good work! I love this thread!
Nice mill! Does it come with the CNC controller? If not there is a bunch of stuff on the web to make your own. Or possibly fix that one. I'd like to get a bigger mill one day. Mine has a 6X18" work area. Kind of small for a lot of things.
Wes
Originally written by Wngnut on 5/4/2009 8:19 AM
Nice mill! Does it come with the CNC controller? If not there is a bunch of stuff on the web to make your own. Or possibly fix that one. I'd like to get a bigger mill one day. Mine has a 6X18" work area. Kind of small for a lot of things.
Wes
Well, I got the mounts from the former CNC setup as well as two servo motors. Unfortunately, there is no system to go with it. Due to the parts removed for the old CNC conversion, I am having to order a few replacement parts to bring the machine back to original. At this point, a manual mill will serve my needs.
I'm having a lot of fun cleaning it up and replacing things. It also has a three horsepower 3 phase motor so I had to order a phase converter. In machinery, often one thing leads to another. LOL.
Manual will be fun:o) If you have any questions let me know.
CNC can be fun also. Here is an example of what I'm playing with. I still have a few pieces to machine for my sidecar. Here is one of them. I want to make a cool looking hub cover, for the wheel. I found this old picture on the net a couple weeks ago.
I cleaned up the image a bit and enlarged the "spinner" portion. This gave me something to go off of.
I then had a buddy of mine trace the spinner in auto cad. He sent that to me and I was able to clean it up a bit in Mastercam. This is what I have so far. I still have to draw up the hub and a couple pieces that this will affix to.
Later, Wes
That's a nice idea. I like the look of billet parts that have been CNC machined. At this point, I'm doing well if I can get the Milling machine going. Towards the end of the year, I'll ad a DRO to it and later on, at least a powered X-axis and that will probably hold me for a while. I like to make onesies and twosies of things.
I can see some CNC parts are in the future for your sidecar!
I've been working on some programing. I have the spinner about done and I need to work on the bezel for my tail light.
Today I cut out the pieces for the gusset that the rear top mount will bolt to on the sidecar frame. I used a piece left over from the tube I used for the axle mount. I got a little carried away and forgot a couple pictures. Here are the pieces welded together. I used my TIG torch here at home to do this:o)
The inside was a mother bear to get to. I had a hard time getting the torch head in the right position.
After I welded everything. I let the part cool and then attacked it with a poly fan on a hand grinder. It turned out really good. I'll probably fill the couple of low spots that I have.
I'll try and get this welded to the frame tomorrow. I have to drill the bolt hole for one of the swivels that I made.
Later, Wes
When you said you were building a sidecar I had no idea that you meant every piece.
I am amazed with your metal working skills.
You can bet I will be following this thread to the end.
Fred
Well I've still been a little sick, I have a cough that is getting annoying. But, I think I'm starting to get over it. It's not too bad today. I went in after work and made the spinner piece that I was talking about a few days ago. The mill was acting up and I had some troubles, but I have something to work with now.
Here is the brass after the first part of the program was ran. I had to mill the center of the spokes out with a 1/8" end mill.
I changed to a 1'4" end mill and cut the center out.
Here I'm starting to do the outside profile.
Here it is done. You can see the tabs that I left to hold the part while it was being machined. I just cut the part free with some Dikes and file the burrs. after I'm done.
I'll post some better pictures of the pieces later, I forgot my camera and used my cell phone so you could see what I was doing.
Later, Wes
Got to play some more today:o) I had to shorten the rear mount some. The clevis/Eye's that I made I thought were going to be too short ended up being a little lnger that I expected. Here are a few more pictures.
Here I have it ground down to the line. I'm test fitting the piece with a scrap piece of tube.
Here it is all together. I have the bracket welded on and everything installed:o)It is a lot more solid now! I just have to finish welding everything now.
I've been practicing my TIG welding. I'll probably TIG the rest of it together I really like it. I have a problem though. I have to have a buddy come look at the wiring on my garage. I have a 75 amp breaker on my house and a 50 going to the welder. I keep flipping the breaker on the house?
Later, Wes
Originally written by Wngnut on 5/10/2009 6:07 PM
Got to play some more today:o) I had to shorten the rear mount some. The clevis/Eye's that I made I thought were going to be too short ended up being a little lnger that I expected. Here are a few more pictures.
Here I have it ground down to the line. I'm test fitting the piece with a scrap piece of tube.
Here it is all together. I have the bracket welded on and everything installed:o)It is a lot more solid now! I just have to finish welding everything now.
I've been practicing my TIG welding. I'll probably TIG the rest of it together I really like it. I have a problem though. I have to have a buddy come look at the wiring on my garage. I have a 75 amp breaker on my house and a 50 going to the welder. I keep flipping the breaker on the house?
Later, Wes
Nice work!
As to the breaker, lots of them are in boxes that, for some reason, are facing the weather. It's not uncommon to have breakers corrode and open up at lower amperages than their rating. If I had one that was consistently tripping, I would replace it with a new one of the same rating to see if that wouldn't cure the problem.
If it works, fine. If not, then you might want to consider running a dedicated line of larger cable to your sub panel. Obviously it's not appropriate to simply install a larger breaker unless the wiring is capable of taking extra amperage.
I had a breaker a few years ago that would pop whenever I got the TIG welder up to top output. I replaced the breaker and it's been working for several years now. I could add a larger one if I wanted since the cable in used is very large. It's OK as is, though.
Good luck.
Wes if you use the dryer plug you shouldn't have a problem, it's a dedicated 220 line, it will require a run of 10# wire which is cheaper now than it's been in a long time.
I think the wires were just loose. When I was taking the breaker off the house the screws were pretty loose. I tightened them up a bit and welded some. It hasn't tripped yet.
Thanks, Wes
Good thing you found the loose screws Wes that's a darn good way to start a fire, keep an eye on them, the copper might get loose again, it has to do with them getting warm and cold, expansion and contraction.
