On 05/26/2010 06:07 AM, Andy Pugh wrote: > Your project prompted me to watch a number of Youtube videos of the > process of rod making, it looks an interesting and exacting process. > > I found myself thinking that a machine consisting of roller-guides and > saw blades (all CNC controlled, of course) through which the strips > are passed could work well. It might take a little work to "slave" the > roller heights to the strip position. It strikes me as potentially > easier than trying to hold down a very thin strip.
Couple of things come to mind. When I was designing the machine, the footprint was one of the primary factors. This is why I ended up with the moving gantry, with the moving cutting head. A strip feed machine would, for all intents and purposes, double my footprint from almost 7' to almost 14'. not enough room in my current shop to house a machine that large and still be able to get any work done. I am using saw blades to make the cut, and as I mentioned before, the hold downs need to be mounted such that they're very close to the saw blades to minimize the work piece movement, and use consistent force to hold the strip in place. With the final design of my cutting head, it pretty much precluded the use of any kind of mechanical hold down. > > (thinking aloud) > > Could you fill a cane with wax and place it between centres, taking > alternating tapered cuts as a third axis rotates the temporarily solid > rod?. You might need to invent an "in the round" joint flattener as a > prior stage. Might be difficult. The tips strips can get pretty darn thin. My test G code was cutting tip strips yesterday which measured .032" from flat to apex of the triangle, and there are some rods I make that have tip strips that measure about .023" from flat to apex (remember there are 6 of these strips in each hexagonal rod section.) Plus, there is all sorts of prep that has to go into each piece, such as heat treating, node pressing and dressing, straightening (bamboo is notorious for kinks, swoops, curls, and all sorts of nonsense depending on how the fibers run in the culm). Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
