Hello all, My name is Roger (Climbing96)

Discussion in 'New member introductions' started by Climbing96, Oct 19, 2021.

  1. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    Hello. My name is Roger and I live in Texas. My business is located in Blanco, TX and as of right now we are manufacturing trailers that are towed behind motorcycles, 3D Printing Services, and CNC Router Services. Strange mix I know, but there is some reason to the madness. We started out making high dollar tow behind motorcycle trailers as a manufacturer/client relationship. and that venture just wasn't going to support the business, but I was passionate about it. The trailers were made out of aerospace grade E-Glass and the molds for the trailers were very expensive. At this point we decided to get a CNC router so we could make our own molds and keep the cost in house. We weren't going to be making molds daily so decided to also offer CNC router services. Then there are some products that in the future we wanted to cast out of aluminum and I wanted to make the plugs out of 3D printed materials, but once again, we weren't going to be coming up with new cast products daily so we offered 3D printer services too. As of right now my focus is on our own design trailer that is towed behind motorcycles. I have a good friend who has a lot of casting back ground but is getting way up there in age, and he said that if I wanted him to show me some stuff he would. Hence the idea that I need to get the equipment put together now so I can learn from him before it is too late. Basically, anything to keep my mind occupied and working with my hands is what we do with this business. I came across this forum after watching several of Kelly's youtube videos. This guy does amazing workmanship and openly shares information. I figured that if he was part of this forum, that birds of a feather flock together, and this forum may be a great place to get my feet wet. I am a jack of all trades, but a master of none. I do electronics, electrics, welding, machining, fiberglass work, and designing my own projects to name a few of my passions. Some of those projects are with outside influences and why I joined this forum. No need re-engineer the wheel. Sounds like you guys have a lot of experience and know what works and what does not. Well, I think I have rambled on long enough. I am going to jump right in and start browsing the knowledge base here. I am sure I will get to know y'all as time rolls on. Later!
     
  2. Mach

    Mach Silver

    Welcome Roger, nice to have you here. Looking forward to seeing what project you have in mind combining CNC routing and 3D printing.
     
  3. Oldarm

    Oldarm Silver

    Yes indeed Roger, there is a wealth of information and and wholesome advice on tap here. Some very interesting ideas at play here too! It's so nice of your friend to offer his "skill bank" up to you. Not only that, but the fact that you want to get "stuck in" is heartening too.
    All the very best, John
     
  4. Petee716

    Petee716 Gold Banner Member

    Welcome Roger. You’ll fit right in!

    Pete
     
  5. Tobho Mott

    Tobho Mott Gold Banner Member

    Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. If you can't find the info you need after a look around, just ask!

    Welcome to the home foundry.

    Jeff
     
  6. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Hey Roger, welcome to the forum.....

    ....and my world too, but like I say, everyone deserves to be good at something.

    Not sure what you have in mind for castings but one thing I think you'll find similar to the MC Trailer molds, doing your own prototype castings could be useful because the development work can be quite expensive and most foundries wont take on anything without the promise of significant production work.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  7. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    I have been busier than a one legged man in a but kickin' contest. If you ever get a chance to watch one of these contests, it is hilarious. To touch base on some of the replies, the CNC stuff was going to be along the lines of making fiberglass mold masters to make fiberglass molds for MC trailers. More on that later. The 3D printing/casting project "will be" (at some point in the future) an off road racing buggy differential. I have seen one similar to what I would like, but they want $10k to 15k for one. So I thought I would make my own, and since I will be making my own, I will add features that theirs does not have. Back to the CNC idea, the way fiberglass molds work in our case is you CNC machine the plug which would be the shape of the final product, lay up tooling epoxy and fiberglass over that, which then becomes the mold. The fiberglass is layed up in the mold, cured, and then you have your part. The upside is you can make molds for most any shape you need. The down side is that the more complicated the mold, the harder it is to get the part out, and the shorter number of parts you can make in that mold as it wears out or gets damaged. Then I thought about casting these molds out of aluminum which w0uld give a huge increase in mold life expectancy. These molds are going to be 4'ish foot x 6'ish foot x 3'ish foot (think small MC trailer bodies), so they are going to be large and heavy. I don't know if anybody here as poured a casting that large at home, but when the time comes I will be wanting to pick their brain quite a bit. As for being "useful because of development work being expensive and foundries not taking on jobs without significant production work", I feel this will be the answer. The molds that we were using for trailers in the past were not only very expensive, but were not perfect. Not just in quality of workmanship but in the design of them. They were not my molds but working with them taught me a valuable lesson. Due to being expensive and not perfect, we were forced to work with the not perfect designs which made the final product more difficult to manufacture. Making the molds in house, the workmanship can only be blamed or praised on us, and if we might have missed something in the design phase, we can much more cost effectively make another mold with the necessary revision.

    So as to where I am now with casting, I have parts on order to make the foundry oven, and have already made the kanthal coil. I will have to blame Kelly for his quality of work and design of his oven, but I am toying with the idea of using the ceramic caulking instead of using IFB's. I will want to pick Kelly's brain on what he thinks of his oven and if he thinks the way he did it is a good idea. It seems that making a lift off oven, which was my original plan, might be more solidly built with a single piece refractory than using individual bricks. Originally I was planning on following the VegOil Guy's ideas, but with a steel lifting structure and bigger oven. Then I saw Kelly's and saw that his idea is more along the lines to what I want, before I knew exactly what I wanted. I have some oven building experience, but different. To cure the aerospace grade fiberglass MC trailer bodies that we used on the first trailers we manufactured, we needed a curing oven. The owner of the trailers we were manufacturing and a very good friend of mine designed the oven walls, and I built it. I then put together the electrics and voila, big curing oven. 8' x 8' x 16' inside dimensions curing oven that we have had up to 275 degrees F to cure the fiberglass. I don't know what the max temperature capability is as we haven't needed to go above 275 yet. A far cry from 1400'ish, and I don't think I will need the volume of this oven to cast anything;-) I still have some browsing around the forum t0 do as I don't know what I don't know yet. The couple of sit downs on the forum I have had so far, I can tell you I am much further down the learning road than what I was before. I am like a sponge when it comes to learning fun stuff like this. It is important to learn from experienced people when venturing off into something that can kill you, but the rewards of making something with your own hands makes it well worth it to me. See y'all out there.
     
  8. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    I just saw under Alerts that I got a trophy for my first post. My first ever participation award;-) Can't wait to see what I get for my first casting! Woohoo!!
     
  9. Petee716

    Petee716 Gold Banner Member

    That’s a mighty big aluminum mold, and an even mightier big sand mold to do in one piece. I’m wondering if the finished aluminum mold can be made in sections and bolted together for use. That would keep your aluminum pours manageable.
    I might not be fully grasping the scope of your job, but that’s my take so far.

    Pete
     
  10. DavidF

    DavidF Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    I'm curious as to the design/shape of the bodies, and why on earth you feel the need for an aluminum mold and having to cnc them out.
    Also, why the post cure? What resins were you using?
    And how about some pictures, we live for pictures here :D
     
  11. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Advantage of mcf is very low mass so it will heat rapidly and be light for lift off. Sort of a pain to work with. Ceramic fiber board is same stuff and might be easier. For a lift off, you need a fool proof way to keep it captured. I used a metal shelf in the outer perimeter of the furnace body.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  12. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    A good point about the pictures as without them, this will be a very long reply. I will see if I can dig up some pics of the trailer that our business started out with and it's molds. The fiberglass we were using was pre-preg E-Glass. Pre-preg just means the fiberglass was pre-impregnated with a resin. This resin is a heat cured resin so once the fiberglass is laid (or layed??) into the mold, it needs to be vacuum bagged, de-bulked (left under vacuum for awhile), and then while still under vacuum, heat cured at 265 to 275 degrees F for 2 hours. Once that part was done, the mold and part were removed from the oven, allowed to cool a bit, and then the parts were removed from the mold. I don't want to CNC the mold out of Aluminum, if I am understanding what you are saying. I am thinking about casting them with aluminum. The sequence would be similar whether the molds were made from fiberglass or aluminum. The plug (or mold master) would in this case be CNC machined, and once the plug was machined, the making of the mold would come next. Whether it had fiberglass laid over it to create the mold or whether the plug was used to make an aluminum casting the end result would be that I would have a mold to then lay up the pre-preg into to get the final part.

    You guys are some fart smellers...I mean smart fellers;-) I didn't mention that, and really I didn't indicate that above, but that is a great idea, and one that got me to thinking about making the molds out of aluminum. One of the problems with the trailers that we started out making was that there was a mold for the left body panel, right body panel, nose, tail, floor/wheel wells, and 2 each for the lid. It made laying them up a bit easier, but for every trailer made, all them parts needed to be assembled, and that was a complicated and drawn out process. My idea was to make the molds so that they bolted together, part was laid up, vacuum bagged, cured, and then the mold was unbolted to remove the part. This would create a body that was one piece making assembly, prepping for paint, and painting much easier. The seams of the trailer always seemed to cause problems with painting. The unbolting bit would be due to captured parts that could not be removed from the mold. So unlike what I indicated above, the bolted together body would be the 4'ish foot x 6'ish foot x 3'ish foot. Still each individual part would be fairly large. The other reason I thought about using aluminum is that with a fiberglass mold, the curing temperatures are better handled by aluminum than with fiberglass and due to the heat cycles and physical force that is sometimes needed to remove the parts, aluminum will have a way longer life cycle. With the fiberglass molds, life expectancy is at most 200 parts, as per the "experts", but we were seeing about 100 parts probably due to the more complex parts. Kind of hard to recoup your mold investment with only that many number of parts per life of the mold. I am going to guess that an aluminum mold would be at least in the several thousand parts life expectancy. On top of that, making these molds in house will be much cheaper than outsourcing them, and will make experimenting with them very feasible. Especially with the possibility of mold life expectancy being so much higher.

    Over the next couple of days I will either find the pictures we have taken already or take some new ones.
     
  13. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    I finally found your build section. While searching for it before I became a member, it always seemed to put me on page 5 (of 1 through 5). Once I became a member and started spending more time reading through posts, I decided to start on page 1 of 5 and voila, there I found a lot of answers to my questions. I am so impressed with the oven portion of this build that I think this is the way I am going to go. There was a lot of information in those posts, and I have not digested it all yet. The main body seemed very straight forward to follow, but for the base and lid, I still need to wrap my head around the assembly of them. Maybe it was due to the long drying times and baby steps taken between drying times, but I will need more time to comprehend what is going on there. for the fool proof way of capturing the main body, am I understanding that the lifting device is the shelf that the oven body sits onto? Or is the metal shell around the main body what you are referring to? I had thought that the metal shell around the main body was to capture the blanket and keep it in place. Well, I am back off to Muses About A Low Mass Electric Furnace to wrap my head around the base and lid construction. I will also want to do some research into the Ceramic Fiber Board you mentioned above. The day I stop learning something new is the day I hang up my hat;-) This forum is making learning about casting very easy for me. I really like how members are openly giving ideas to the problem, and every once in awhile taking a jab at each other. Friends are there to pick you up when you are down, and put you down when you are up;-) Later!
     
  14. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Search for a thread called “the furnace thread” posted by me. May give you some other ideas.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  15. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    I had found that thread earlier, and it has a wealth of information. I don't know if the VegOil Guy is on this thread or not, but he motivated me to make a lift off furnace. More complicated of a furnace oven (lift off), but simpler process of casting. My thoughts are to spend more time once in the beginning to save time and be safer for every pour. Kind of the idea of making a bolt together mold for trailers. Way more complicated molds and more time in the beginning, but simplifying every trailer body made from them down the road.

    I have been looking for pricing for mcf and pcf. The moldable I was able to find a 1 gallon bucket for $80 and a 5 gallon bucket for $350. I have not been able to find a place that will give a price for the pumpable without requiring an account, which then requires giving them my bank account number, my social security number, DBA information, etc, etc. No thanks. As a quesstimate, how much do you think you used of pumpable and moldable in your project Kelly? Next question: Do you think the moldable would need to be installed at thinner layers to prevent cracking like you needed to do with the pumpable? The learning continues.
     
  16. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    Well, it took some doing as we have had phones crap out, computers crap out, and most importantly my memory crap out, but I found some pictures. I am sure we have better pictures somewhere, but have not come across them yet. Not sure I am doing this photo thing correctly, but we will give it a go. In this photo, the outer lid is laid up, it is vacuum bagged, and being de-bulked (under vacuum for about an hour). I am going to do these photos in sections so I can learn what I am doing here.
     

    Attached Files:

  17. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    And this time I will explore a different way of doing a photo. It looks like I will need some help figuring out how to put pictures in a post. I guess thumbnails will do for now. Once the part is de-bulked, it is put into the curing oven for 2 hours at 265 F and due to the size of the oven, it takes an hour to heat up to that temp so we put the part in the oven for 3 hours from a cold start. This next picture is showing the cured part with the vacuum bagging material pulled back. The red material is a peel ply. It keeps the batting (white stuff) from sticking to the mold and making it hairy when all is separated. The batting does a couple of things. It absorbs the excess resin which can get to the batting via the tiny holes in the peel ply, and it give some space for the vacuum to evenly be distributed throughout the part. Then the green part is the vacuum bag itself. Once the part is cured, all the bagging material is removed and discarded. The next image is the part removed from the mold. This is the outer lid, which is the simplest lay up for this trailer. Those are plastic wedges laying under the part and on top of the mold. Even the simplest lay up and a good coating of mold release still has these parts being difficult to remove from the molds. After the parts are removed from the molds, it is now time to trim off the excess at the edges and then to continue laying up the rest of the parts. 7 molds in total.

    KIMG0078.jpg KIMG0079.jpg
     
    Tobho Mott and DavidF like this.
  18. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    This is a picture of the inner lid being laid up and the honeycomb being placed. The fiberglass is white in this photo. The other side of the fiberglass has the resin pre-impregnated on it. During the curing cycle, the resin will liquify and flow into the fibers. This is one reason we need to cure the parts under vacuum. The raw material that we use is about 0.020" thick. Once cured, it measures 0.010" to 0.012" thick. As the resin liquifies and flows into the fibers, it gets thinner, and the vacuum helps to compress them as this happens to get a cleaner and tighter part. Once the base layers have been laid up, the honeycomb placed, and then additional layers to capture the honeycomb, it is bagged, vacuumed, cured, and then removed. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
    KIMG0081.jpg



    This is the most complicated lay up of this trailer. The floor panel. It is difficult to access due to its size, meaning ones back starts barking part way through the layup process. For those that do not have fiberglass pre-preg experience, imagine trying to take a table cloth and lining the inside of a box. It can easily be done just by overlapping at the corners, but with parts, we can't just overlap everywhere as this creates thick and thin sections which creates problems in the final part. There has to be some overlaps for strength, but each layer we try to cut and overlap at different locations in an attempt to get a more consistent part thickness. If all the overlaps were at the same place, for a 5 layer part, at that location there would be 10 layers. The abrupt change in thickness is where the part will fail when stressed. So as with the table cloth and box example, imagine the agony of laying this part up. Flat sections are easy. Curved, rounded, plane changes, and whatever else you can think of are difficult, but all of them together is extremely complicated.

    KIMG0114.jpg
     
  19. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    This is a pic of all the parts assembled on the assembly jig. This is very hard to get all the parts assembled square so the lid fits. Hence the reason to wanting to make a bolt together mold that would give us a one piece body to avoid this headache. The durability of a bolt together mold made from aluminum I think will be worth the effort.

    KIMG0117.jpg

    And the final product.

    KIMG0266.jpg
     
  20. Climbing96

    Climbing96 Copper

    This trailer is the best MC trailer in the world, in my opinion, looking past the price. It has some problems manufacturing wise, and that is one of the future projects that I hope you fart smellers can help me out with. Before that though I have a lot to learn, and many smaller projects to help me build up to something this large. Baby steps. Later!
     

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