Everything I needed for the HBK foot arrived and it was all machined out by Friday;
Above the parts with supports added plus slots/pins to make assembly 100% accurate.
Above the foot broken down with the supports removed and bottom the foot loose assembled. Apologies for the dust on the parts I give them a quick wipe but it seems the light/camera picked it up. Everything will get a sonic clean in degreaser before being cast.
Bonus picture of the rear of the upper section calf. It details like the vent that are texture based in Mechwarrior online I added these details back to keep the richness of the aesthetic.
Its been some 14hr days to get the foot complete, I felt like I had to catch up lost time coupled with the desire to see something whole and finished. I'll probably ease up on gas a little because that pace was too much as my blood shot eyes can attest.
As for the CNC machine the MDX40a has done great, I'm getting into a rhythm with it. The only fly in the ointment so far is I don't have a band-saw (no space for it) necessary to cut small straight blocks for machining, so I have to cut half using my chop-saw and the smaller cuts with a tendon saw. The cuts are wonky because of that and I have to added a margin to compensate and them get the machine to 'square off' that just wastes a lot of time and expensive model board. Temped to by one anyway, keep it in the house and tell the wife its a sowing machine.... that way she'd never touch it ^^
So I was caught by the bank holiday day curse i.e. stuff that should of arrived on Thurs/Friday but didn't leaving me 4 days behind.
So i was hoping to show you the HBK foot but you'll have to settle for some fluff instead
The Lighting aero I made from the block of eBay wasn't cast-able quality imo even with a coat of gloss (It'll be remade from the new block) in the mean time i just wanted to see it together.
Pink smoke bisches
Whoosh
Any way with the arrival of the new red block and the long mills form the US I could get to work on the first part of the HBK foot;
As you can see silky smooth surface and that's just the first finish pass 1mm ball end I also go over finer details with 0.5mm mill or smaller to make sure the details are crisp.
The machine is a Roland MDX40A with the rotary axis making
it a 4axis mill.
Ultimately I went with CNC over 3D printing. While 3D
printing has come along way its still in its infancy. What 3D printing
can do is no briner output, great when you want to quickly
iterate something but its held back by poor surface face quality and
post production clean up which when you want something with fine detail
is a no no. Then the other stumbling block is the cost the best
of the best you are looking at astronomical prices (I was hitting £1000mark). 3D print pricing is
universally squared on size, a few extra centimetres would
add hundreds to the price. 3D printing is very much like the dot
matrix printers in the 80's its a long way from finished product at an
affordable price maybe in 10 or 20years.
CNC on the other
hand is a mature industry that due 3D printing taking a chunk of its
market, costs for machines have come down. Where CNC excels is finish,
fit and variable costs. Details can be 0.25mm, surfaces can be smooth as
you can model them, price is loaded onto fixed cost material is
relatively cheap, fit is exact (parts don't warp like big 3Dp parts). Then why isn't everyone CNC'ing their models? well this is the rub CNC requires machine access
over hangs and internal spaces are a physical impossibility. This
requires the user to break the model down into a way which can be
machined and that's why an upload and output service couldn't happen.
Setting up and design;
So as with anything new and this complicated it took a while to get going. First I had to install the machine which meant a new bench set up for the workshop but it also meant I had to tidy the workshop as over the winter with no car in grew into huge dusty mess. Finding a place for everything when you have none spare space is tricky (basically play musical chairs for 2weeks).
With that sorted I could focus on getting the machine running CNC software is not plug'n'play. All I had to go on was a 4hr demo about 8weeks before the MDX40A was delivered. There lots of variables to consider and tbh I was feeling around in the dark for a while till I started to understand what processes did what. The good thing about the software is once you get the basics understood its easy to build on your understanding. It also has a helpful simulation render of the final output which helps you spot any oversights.
As you can see I picked the MWO lighting fighter to make it provided a number of challenges The part is very small this section is only 35x5x3.5mm it has small details, thin sharp edges, long compare to its thickness and has a joint so I can check too see how seamless the fit is. Its small size meant if I messed up I didn't waste a huge amount of time or material.
Output:
I purchased some model board from a site it said 'for fine detail' because it was quick to buy. But tbh its porous meaning the surface wouldn't be that smooth (something I could fix with by giving a post production gloss)
It took 6 attempts to get to a finished model, first attempts the plunge
depth on the tool was too much, the original supports were too weak and I
also thought I'd save time making the body and the thrusters together
but that just meant the section was too long and was prone to snap. I also was delayed waiting for fine end mills (bits) to arrive and when they did found 1/8 mill ends didn't fit in a 3mm collet so I need to order and wait for a 1/8inch collet. Once those were sorted we were cooking.
As you can see I'm quite youthful looking for a 33yearold
0.5mm ballnose mill working into the under wing crevice
And the finished output
I also made a fan too blow the chips down and away. I bought an offcut of nylon on ebay doesn't machine too well but it'll never shatter.
And we're @ the present where I have to make a choice on model board (the stuff that gets milled). to help I made a test model that would represent what I would be making
Left to right high grade to low grade.
After I gave them a black base coat (so those pretty colours don't created illusions) to see which has the best surface finish. The blue and the red were pretty much identical but the red did better in the snap test so I think for the sake of a few pence more probably worth it encase of a mishap like dropping a part.
Only downer is you have to buy a big sheets of the stuff 800x400 which is like buying 2 years supply upfront. Once this is order and delivered and some mill ends for the USA arrive I'll be able to start work outputting parts of the HBK.
So that's us all up-to-date. The good news is unlike with 3D printing where there are big gaps between having something to show, with the new machine I'll be able to machine the parts as they are finished so there be more updates.
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New bench built. Allot of stuff to get into a small space still in the process of tidying every thing up. The walls are crooked and two brick piers each corner which complicates things. The car when its in the garage comes within 30cm of the bench.
I didn't want to loose any of my big items which meant moving my drill press and ditching my old bench to make something that would fit it and house my compressor underneath. I also didn't want anything to trip/catch my knees or feet so no central legs. Everything I importance was scaled into a 3D model for a cm perfect fit because I need to maximise the use of this modest space.
4.5x4.5cm framing with hidden bracing, screwed/glued and secured to both walls
2.5cm MDF top cut to fit flush
Frames is set back 2cm from the top
Shelf set back 4.5cm into the frame
I plan to revisit the middle shelf and partition it adding a set of 2 draws to the right side. Draws juts take a long time to make so its a project for a less hectic time. Also going to go back and smooth edges to save catching myself on them. I need to add a MDF top the the drill press cabinet, it needs to come out any way to have the draws cleaned (metal shavings from previous owner) and come concrete snots chip off the floor wall that's stopping the cabinet from butting up flush
If you're wondering what I do for bigger projects, the car goes outside and I use this Folding Table. It packs away nicely, light weight but strong, not too bouncy and you can screw into it. Cheap enough to not cry if it gets wrecked. Had mine 2 years great for casting, spray painting, can put my chop saw on it and outside messy jobs.
As Austin Geiger guessed correctly I'm working on the Hunchback from MWO most of making it solid has been done. Then its a case of making it work as an articulated real world model this includes adding joints fixing clipping issues.
The hunchback is fairly rare in how much varieted it looks I considering the best way to design the model and how swapping the humps will work. I think I will run into issues with hitting the articulation in the shoulder while getting a clean fit I can't really see how until all the parts are cleaned and solid to see the common shared elements. The SRM6 variant posed a 2nd issue with the mirrored hump it has to be able to affix without leaving a trace and the game model keeps the rear barrel at the back clips the vents. It might be the case that I make a torso solely for the SRM6 variant otherwise I'll be too many compromises but will see there might be a way I haven't seen.
Above the model broken down into its sub sections (scale version on the right hand side for reference). Everything has been made 'a solid' bar the humps and the forearm. Odd lines, broken mesh and such referencing marks for fit I add/leave them when I start and they get deleted once everything is finalized.
I haven't really shared any pictures of my workshop its a dual purpose space where I cast and also keep my classic car. The space isn't the greatness but it has to do till my house extensions is built and I'll gain a good deal of space and be able to divide the shop from the garage. Any way for the time being with the arrival of new machine I have to optimize the garages lay out which means ditching my current workbench and build a bespoke solution that houses the new machine, keeps as main of my other items (compressor, drill press, under bench storage) my dust extractor and bench sander will have to find new place to live for now. Below is a scale mock up to help me make 100% use of the space.
Going keep playing with it see if I can steal a bit more space some where. As you can see its a small space and the marked rectangle on the floor is where the car comes too (I move it outside when I need the shop space and its rented out over the winter). Either way I have to make it by this Thursday.
So I thought I would bring you guys up to speed. I sank a lot of time into the leopard and it was almost there but it required a huge amount of effort more than I imagined to surface finish it. It started me thinking there's got to be a better way to get parts perfect parts and not priced to volume. So I did some digging and long story short I found something went and had a demo and bought it (it should arrived Thursday).
It should produce ready to cast parts but requires careful design which some times become mind boggling. What does this mean well I'm going to scrap the SLS printed leopard and remake it on this machine (plus a little bigger and redesigned some parts. There's work to be done on the 3d model to get it fit for this machine to make but until I get the software its hard to know where the changes need to be made. I'll bring you some updated when its up and running (I have to build a bench for it and move some stuff from the workshop)
What I don't want to sit idle so I've used this down time t crack on with the next model below is the biceps made solid with some added details to the cylinders (cylinders are easier to finish now before everything is made into a solid)
Any experts want to hazard a guess what mech this is from?
I don't always have time to get stuck into some of the jobs, so in one of those lulls I decided to put the Air strike aerospace fighter, gave it a quick once over to make it printable.
There we have the Lighting G15 aerospace fighter. It not super detailed but at TT scale there's enough there to make it worthy. Which will means the dropship comes with a lance of MWO mechs and a Wing of MWO aerospace fighters
