StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit

[Shinobiwan]

Its one of these.

Buy Numatic NVD750 Workshop Vacuum Extractor from Axminster, fast delivery for the UK

With two 1200w motors there's plenty of suction. The bristles keep the stuff thrown by the cutter contained and the vacuum does the rest.

[Ricardoco]

Magic Videos, and great Job. It occurred to me the videos would make a great advertisement for Strike-Cnc if they start up again as they have no Video Titles on them Great Job.. Rick

[Shinobiwan]

Not normally worth posting about replacing the bed but I picked up a sheet of Trespa Athlon from a friend and have to say this is makes a great bed. Plenty of mass, well damped against vibration, dimensionally stable, tough and still easy to drill and set up fixtures. The construction is a fibre reinforced resin with a laminated finish. I've had a quick go with an offcut made when sizing the sheet to fit the bed and it machines really nicely.

I got this sheet for nothing and I'm not sure on pricing but Performance Panels : Home stock it.

[Shinobiwan]

OK here we have my first go at cutting aluminium. I had so much fun with these. Wood seems boring in comparison and you've got to be so much more mindful with how you go about cutting it. Oh and the engraving was an absolute frigtastic nightmare as well. Broke 3 cutters before I finally hit the g spot. Admittedly the cutters are uber fragile since they're pretty much needles sticking out of a 3hp spindle spinning them round at 24000 rpm. Even getting it slightly wrong would break them. There's a strong chance I'll end up getting a laser cutter/engraver at some point because its a painfully slow this way. Looks cool though and that's what counts.

I finished them up with fine brushed effect and then sealed with a couple of coats of clear because without either that, etching or anodising then natural aluminium is a finger print magnet.

As an experiment I'm going to have a go at filling the text with black spray on the One.10 plates. Once the excess paint is sanded back to the aluminium leaving only the lettering black it should look alternatively awesome. I choose not to do it for the Apollo as I really like the way they're looking straight out.

[Swarfing]

Bloody hell so posh now you got to ware gloves hey? Nice job

[John S]

Try drag engraving, next to impossible to break a cutter.



Circle is 50mm diameter, small letters near the bottom are 1/2 a mm

Laser will only engrave alloy if it's been anodised and the letters are always white, so just using anodised alloy looks a bit like an Italian flag, white cross on white background.

You need a colour that compliments it like red, blue or black.



If you want it the opposite way, black letters on alloy then you need a product called Thermark which is a ceramic slurry made from 3rd dynasty Chinese Ming vases as it's £100 an aerosol [ no typo ] but does last a long while

[Shinobiwan]

Try drag engraving, next to impossible to break a cutter.

Pissing hell John. Why didn't you say so before I spent a whole day dicking around with pieces of carbide string that break more often than a woman driver!

[John S]

Because you never asked dickhead.

[Shinobiwan]

Because you never asked dickhead.

Pfff all I'm hearing is excuses

[Philly]

I've had success with plaster of paris. Same effect and cost me nothing because I robbed it off the kids :)