{"id":473,"date":"2011-09-12T13:30:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T17:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/?p=473"},"modified":"2012-02-07T09:24:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T14:24:25","slug":"cnc-mill-metal-fabrication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/cnc-mill-metal-fabrication\/","title":{"rendered":"CNC mill – metal fabrication"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the CAD design more or less complete it’s time to make some parts. I generated some 2D views of the various parts and plotted them at full scale, then spray-mounted them to some sheet metal, most of which I had cut to size beforehand.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

As a result, most of the fabrication involved simply drilling and tapping the right sized holes in the steel:<\/p>\n

\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

But some of the more complicated parts required cutting out larger areas of material. I did most of this very slowly with the jig saw and a metal-cutting blade. But some of the rectangular areas allowed me to use the mill!<\/p>\n

\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

I quickly realized that this machine will be challenged by steel, as even this thin material caused the whole column\/head to flex as I cranked on the wheels. I think it will be possible to machine steel, but the feeds will need to be very slow and it will definitely require copious amounts of coolant.<\/p>\n

Here’s the “lower cabinet assembly”–the part that will house the motor drivers and their power supply–welded up and primed:<\/p>\n

\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

The front panel of the controller box required extensive modification, done entirely with the jig saw and drill bits (the large holes were made with a step drill). I couldn’t wait to dry-fit the assembly onto the mounting arm:<\/p>\n

\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

The front panel also required a fair amount of welded parts on the back side, for mounting the monitor and keyboard. Notice how the thin sheet metal warped after welding:<\/p>\n

\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

Final fitting before priming and painting:<\/p>\n

\"fabricating<\/a><\/p>\n

Next step, assembly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the CAD design more or less complete it’s time to make some parts. I generated some 2D views of the various parts and plotted them at full scale, then spray-mounted them to some sheet metal, most of which I had cut to size beforehand. As a result, most of the fabrication involved simply drilling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[35,34,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}