On 04.04.17 05:00, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Tuesday 04 April 2017 02:51:22 Gregg Eshelman wrote: > > > I wonder if they've heard about lost PLA casting? One off and short > > runs without needing to make expensive, reusable patterns, plus the > > ability to do casting shapes impossible with patterns that must be > > removable from a sand mold, could be a money maker for the foundry. > > 'Course they'd have to get and learn to use a 3D printing setup. > > That looks like something I could do, if I had a big enough printer and > could learn how to do the 3d model to feed the slicer software for the > printer. I'm thinking of the belt guards in particular which would need > at least one dimension in the 250mm by 100 by 100 range.
Much much easier (and faster) for a relatively simple L-shaped angle bracket with webs is lost polystyrene foam. For best finish, a hot-wire cutter is a quite simple tool to make and use. (For the big central cut-out, scribe the circle in pen, or pin on a cardboard template, and cut radially to that circumference. Once around, exit by the same radial cut. A little PVA glue seals that up again.) The foot of the L, and webs, are similarly attached with a little PVA glue. In extremis, lacking a hot-wire cutter, the only slicers needed are a pointy breadknife to hack out the hole in the middle, and a sharp box knife or similar to slice out the rectangle, triangles, and external radius. Cold cutting works better (finish-wise) on that fine blue "Styrofoam", sold by Dow as "Blue Ribbon Insulation Boards" or "Wallmate". Do you have any offcuts remaining from lining the garage door, Gene? You could have the pattern done in a day - for nix. Erik ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
