Christopher Newport University Brass Project

[beacon14]

Funny how the tedium and frustration of "days of sanding" and wanting to throw yourself into the chipper seem to melt away when the cover comes off the crate and the client sees the finished product. Brady you are rightly proud to have executed that project - truly a job which you will be happy for people to walk all over for years to come.

[mindlesspappy]

Brady,
I am truly impressed with your work and that of the bot also. Just curious, what did you settle on as far as feeds, speeds, and depth-of-cut?

[curtiss]

Dumb questions below ...

1) So you had how much of the 640 pounds left over ??

2) If you made a mistake, could you have flipped the ring over to try again on the other side ??

nice work

[harryball]

Very nice! We also must shop at the same place, I have the exact same hydraulic cart.

I can't wait to see all the projects you complete with the leftover materials.

/RB

[tkovacs]

Wow - inspiring indeed!

I guess using the bot to surface the material instead of sanding would have left nasty toolmarks?

Terry

[frankwilliams]

A real Masterpiece! I love seeing this kind of stuff on the forum, it always inspires me to see what a real craftsman can achieve. Thanks for posting the storyboard of this creation. Its always cool to see the evolution of a piece including the "bumps" along the way. Makes me appreciate the process even more!

[Brady Watson]

Thanks for all of the kind responses! I've been away in NY setting up the very 1st vacuum system on a Buddy (BT32)...I've got a few tweaks to do before it is ready for prime time...I'm defintely ready for a vacation! (a stay at home one!)


I have a couple hunks of metal left over, but a few were used for testing the resin, overall finish etc, some were given away in thanks to those who either assisted me on the project or were otherwise involved. I have a few pieces here to monkey with when I find a project worthy of them. I'm sure they would make a nice clock or other heirloom item, when the time is right.

To answer a few tech questions, in general, I restricted the stepdown to about .015" per pass, and ran about .3 to 1.2 IPS depending on the size of the cutter and the area being cut out. At several thousand dollars per sheet, I chose to be on the conservative side & take a little more time to make sure that I didn't ask the Bot to do more than it was really designed for. I would bet that there are very few shops around that would have routed out this project...There were a lot of little behind the scenes tweaks that needed to be done in order to be successful. The sheer scale and weight of this project presented some challenges. You see one hydraulic cart in the pic above...I had to buy 3 of them to be able to move things around and bolster the Bot to handle the weight. I also had to make a table to go on top of the cart that would acomodate the 3X6 foot size of these parts. You'll also see a PVC tube that I slit down the middle to protect the front X rail from damage & damaging the brass when getting parts on & off the table. Big Bertha is a 5X16' machine...and I can't load it from the end of the table...so over the rails I go.

What was really tough about cutting the metal was that the sounds were very different from other materials, even other metals. When cutting aluminum, you get a humming sound, which is pretty typical when you machine thick bars of the stuff. The brass was completely different. While I learned to listen for specific sounds while machining, they were very different from aluminum. Ear and eye protection were absolutely 100% necessary at all times. I'd rather look like a racoon for a few hours than have to have brass splinters removed from my eyeballs...wanna feel something really nasty? wipe chips off the table with your bare hands...I didn't think that anything was worse than carbon fiber splinters in terms of pain...I was wrong. Anyway...so the sound was very different, and my nerves were pretty well shot after each cutting session - if for no other reason than this job commanded a very attentive operator...No drink and snack breaks while the tool was running. (not that I really do much of that anyway...) But...I really had to observe each cut and make sure that everything was going OK, at every turn of the bit and every stepdown. The amount of force required to cut this alloy of brass, meant that there was a high chance that I could push the tool too hard or too fast & lose position - which was something that I really didn't want to have happen. Needless to say, it took just a wee bit longer to cut than if it were made out of sign foam!

OK...off to bed. I'll try to answer more questions later & feel free to ask questions as needed.

While it's nice to get appreciation from the group, I posted this to inspire others. Sometimes you don't realize how big you can really be when the time calls for it. I put my pants on just like you guys...and as Anthony Hopkin's character in the movie The Edge says, "What one man can do, another can do" - if you have enough desire and you believe in yourself...

-B

[scottcox]

Outstanding stuff as usual, Brady!

You really know how to raise the bar. Thanks for the inspiration!

[drodda]

In Brady's life there are no Bars, Brady used his bot to cut them up long ago.

Nice work Brady, once again you have proven why I HATE you!!!!!!!!!!

[bcammack]

Beautiful work, Brady.

Question: Was there a compelling reason to do the detail carving *after* cutting out the half-rings? Seems like doing the detail carving first would've allowed you to avoid any negative repercussions of that one half springing when cut out.

I can't recall. Do you have a waterjet yet? If not, you'd have a ball with it.