Hello Everyone While digging around for some springs, in my miscellaneous parts box, for my Portable Flask Vibrator, I came across my first casting patterns , so I thought I would share a lttle history with you. The patterns are nothing special and for from professional, but the end result is pretty cool, in my opinion. During the course of building my first automated machine, which was a wire forming machine (A.K.A. Spring Bender), I needed both a wire feeder mechanism and a wire spool turning mechanism, both of which were going to be powered by a NEMA 23 high torque stepper motor. Without going into great detail and providing tales of my trials and tribulations, it is suffice to say that a NEMA 23 motor will feed wire through a wire feeder, providing it is not also pulling on a bunch of weight. The wire for the machine is 0.032" music wire, which is purchased in a 15# spool and having an inner spool diameter of approximately 12 inches. Without having some type of gearing, no NEMA 23 motor was ever going to spin this size spool of wire. I needed both a way to contain the wire and slowly feed the wire to the wire feeder assembly, so I started designing my wire spool assembly. With the inner diameter of the spool and the required gearing in mind, I decided to build my spool feeding mechanism around a 350 Chevy flywheel and starter I had laying around Without making this story to lengthy I needed a hub for the flywheel, which either had to be specially made and purchased or cast, and I also needed a wire feeder which either had to be specially made and purchased or cast. Of course, I opted for casting Besides the photos below, I will also add that I also needed to adapt the Chevy starter pinion gear to a NEMA 23 motor
