El Beast - Initial design phase, comments and critique welcomed!

**routercnc** · 22-10-2018

Black it is then !

The contrasting text looks nice. When you machine each part is there a reference block or fixture so after anodising it can go back on the CNC in the right place to engrave the letters ?
What engraving tool are you using and to what depth ?
Great work by the way.

**Zeeflyboy** · 22-10-2018

Cheers.

To etch the lettering I'm chucking it in the CO2 laser - because it's a Glowforge it's a bit of an unusual one for zeroing a part. You can drag stuff directly where you want it using the top down camera but that's not quite perfect yet, so I tend to burn some reference marks into a piece of card/paper and line the part up with that if I need accurate alignment.

**routercnc** · 22-10-2018

I forgot you were that tooled up!

I wondered how you got such crisp edges and maybe the anodising was helping but laser makes sense now.

Don’t forget to make something on the new machine and not just more parts for it (!)

**Zeeflyboy** · 23-10-2018

Technically its the wife's ;)

You are assuming I ever finish... seems along way away. Fun journey though!

I've been busy anodising some the Z-axis parts... all that's left to do are the big front plate and the side plates (for which I need to cook up a clever way of holding them in the tub).

Top and bottom plate:

Here's my Dye tub (30L) and immersion heater with thermostat

And my big steel hotpot that fits most stuff for sealing:

Largest part so far - the back plate. This one ran at 10 amps and is the first time I've actually observed the anodising bath increase in temp during a run. Only by a degree or so but noticeable.

Too big for my hot pot, so I found a steel ash container and sealed it with silicon to make it watertight.

Final parts after a quick light buff with some automotive polish that helps remove some the haze I'm getting on the surface after sealing with the nickel acetate:

Hope to get the last few bits done in the next few days and then I can assemble and see how it looks. Might do a touch more laser etching too because it's addictive....

**AlexDoran** · 24-10-2018

Looking great as usual

**Zeeflyboy** · 25-10-2018

Good to know - thanks for the info!

So I needed to make a little doo-hickey out of titanium to allow me to rack the side panels (note, titanium screws too!)

Parts degreased and after a quick etch and Desmut:

Dyed and laser etched... I did two different etches here, the honeycomb was at a higher speed and lower power which has given it a nice grey effect that looks better in real life than on the camera. Was a bit worried after doing this that it was too bold and in your face, but having assembled it I really like the look as part of the overall assembly.

That done, I put together the bulk of the Z-axis after the anodising. Only the big front plate left to do but I need to figure out how I'm going to seal it as the only suitably large vessel I have to boil it in is a 60L drum which will take a loooong time to get to the boil with a 1.5kw heater.

**Chaz** · 25-10-2018

Fcking amazing work as ever.

**Magnus3** · 25-10-2018

Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Right, finally a proper bit of machining to show... I did a small re-design on the face plates as they still weren't quite going to fit on my machine and I wanted a slightly wider stance. In order to keep the structural part as a single piece, I made the main piece slightly shorter and then added removable "wings" for the extension.

I've left the wings uncoloured to make them easier to see:

Made the front main face plate today:

Started with a jig plate made from SRBP - nothing fancy, just a plate I could machine flat and put some screw threads into, and a slab of 20mm eco-cast plate.

After interior roughing, contouring and drilling ops:

I drilled though the m8 screw holes with a 6.8mm into the jig plate and tapped them to allow me to then fix the plate down through those, which then allowed me to the remove the clamps and run the exterior ops:

Top side finished:

Then flipped it over and re-fastened to run the rear chamfer:

And done:

hello.. its a nice build you have don.. are maybe have any Cad printing on all the parts you did make.. if you have i wondering if you could chare it to me.

**Magnus3** · 25-10-2018

hello.. its a nice build you have don.. are maybe have any Cad printing on all the parts you did make.. if you have i wondering if you could chare it to me.