Ebay Adams Flasks

I made my small flask bolt together similar to that. I wished now I had used a groove and a butterfly nut on one end and a swivel on the other...pain in the ass putting them together and taking them apart with an allen wrench all the time. I am looking at making a different snap lock flask now that can be locked with a cam or similar to your lock method. I used to have all the parts for the cam design and could cast them myself but I am not sure I still have them. I tried to watch the simple wooden flask design you had posted earlier but the video is down.

 

Ok the hinges have to center on the exact bottom corner of the drag


And the mounting plate has to be perpendicular to the base of the flask, not at the 5 degree angle . The pattern was a little off. So some love on the sander I got it dressed up perfect

Now a little foreshadowing: the cope will be far more difficult to assemble then the drag as along with everything I do to the drag, the cope has to match the drag, very closely. Right now looking at the cope and drag together. I may have to shim (or do a weld buildup) to get the corners properly aligned. But I have to scrap the top of the cope and the bottom of the drag. Which may make up this shortcoming (fingers crossed)


Here is the hinge done


The latch side requires some extra work. Pictured is the latch catch side it needs to be lowered significantly so I can get the latch to actually have a place for the hardware... I knew about this when I made the patterns. I cut a corner and only made 4 patterns . If I made an individual pattern for every part of the flask it would have required less work at this point... but since I only expect to have to use this pattern once. It’s ok.
And yes I cut that aluminum with a router

Here you can see the finished latch. You can see I had to lower the catch so I could get the latch to attach to the flask. I may have d
To do a little weld build up of the latch gives me issues and tap out the other two latch holes

But for now it looks good


Last couple of things. I twisted off a couple of the bolts 1/4-20. So I probably should have used grade 8
V/r. HT1

 

Ok now the lapping to flatten the flask faces.
I purchased two 120 24x60 inch sanding belts... $20 each

I cut the joint on the belt and clamped it down to the top of my welding table



here is a little spray paint doing double duty a blueing

An hour later we are acceptable
Flat


V/t HT1

 

Now the cope. The cope always was going to be more of an issue then the drag


as I suspected the Cope was way worse then the drag, so I had to add a 1/8 inch shim to each corner, I added two, but only needed one

the shrinkage at two of the corners was making getting the Cope to size and shape a nightmare. in this picture, i'm done, the cope is perfect, so i had to add some metal


I decided to weld the shims in place to make my life easier, I was surprised, the cast aluminum welded, VERY well, something I did not expect

I jigged up the corner, it looked perfect, but when I drilled it, it has pulled out of square, I tried shimming it multiple time, somehow the vice-grips would not hold the flasks the same as the bolts, bolts kept causing the flasks to pull in the ends, I experimented, then it struck me


I jigged the flasks perfectly, and welded them, since they welded so well, this cured all my heart ache, I really did not want to go this route, since I know alot of people cannot weld aluminum, making my process less repeatable, but I will get working flasks out of the deal, and know at least part of my issue, the corners of the flasks are actually too large, but were as small as I could make them at the time, Next set I will do something completely different, that others should be able to repeat


V/r HT1

 

I finished the flasks today. Will video a test soon

As I predicted the cope was pure hell. I had to weld up an redrill several holes (my bad). Lots of work with the router.... I did get so lucky if this aluminum had been gummy this project would have failed

With that said some
Of you just are not helpful. Why didn’t anyone mention putting the pieces back in the compound miter saw to dress those corner. All it would have taken is some blade lube and hours of sanding and scraping would have been eliminated


I got 12&7/8 inch at the parting ... which is good enough for my largest size. I may cast anothe set and trim them in the compound miter saw to get a set of 12 inch.
I’ll try and do a test video ASAP

v/r HT1

 

I tested the snap flasks this morning. The hinges are bending. That causes the pins to bind. Then the sand drops out of the flask. So I gotta do 3 things:
Add more sand retention
Set up a router track and trim down the hinge bases to get more flask under the hinges
Try and find some better hinges

not looking forward to that last as it toook me forever to find those

V/r HT1

 

Well joker I’m considering stepping way back and going a totally different direction


Now for the sand retention I already bought a 10MM carbide hole saw. It sucked on the aluminum. But if I did it on the wood pattern in the drill press with a crossslide milling vice I could get the exact results the Hines and freeman get on their flasks


now If I cast the cope and drag sections as one piece. Then ran them through the table saw with a metal cutting blade . I could get a perfect fit. Cutting out all the sanding scraping and lapping to get the cope and drag to mate up . With no effort and less cost (24inchsandpaper is expensive). I could get a perfect fit

I already considered and mentioned dressing the compound miter of the flasks on the miter saw once cast in aluminum. If I extend my back stop on the compound miter. I can do the cope and drags before separating them. Guaranteeing and absolutely perfect fit of the flasks


Finally addressing you if I added just a bit of a hump to create a 1 inch circle at the hinge end of the flask . The center point of the “hinge “ can be as far inward as the inside corner of the low point of the drag. I ll calculate the hinge In advance... I could put the cope and drags into a mortise jig. Cut tenons drill a hole down the middle. And make the flask it’s self my hinge... and that would be repeatable ... now of course I have to learn how to cut compound mortise tenons...

IM OFF TO YOUTUBE!!!

V/r. HT1

 

Why not cast the Hinge into the flask? Ground Drill rod is cheap (for the pin). Drill the hole, ream it. Peen the ends to retain the pin. No slop, as long as the hole is straight it should open flat.

 

i'm considering that, but may have come up with an even better idea

 

Ok this will be my last post in this thread

after watching a ton of YouTube videos, and talking with a finish carpenter, I'm going to start over on a different track for snap flasks , I have an idea that will be MUCH easier , and probably repeatable by most any sand caster ,
actually it's so easy it may be doable in wood with nothing but a table saw ,

I'm waiting for some parts I need to get seriously started

V/r HT1