Some pics of our PRT extended to 20ft/adjustable bed

[Steven Ree]

I just wanted to take the opportunity to brag about putting to test our converted 8ft shopbot to 20ft with a 22inch Z plunge. The table was made seperate with a hydraulic lift bed and tabs welded to the back of the struts for securing.




This conversion allowed us to mill out a 28" wide by 19ft long 16inch deep plug for a thermoform kayak mold done in Rhino and cut using CUT3D! In one run!!!!!!!!! Im verrrry happy today!

And this is the hydraulic lift bed



And this is 50% of the plug cut today!



I just want to thank Shopbot and Vectric for the ability to make this happen at an affordable price.Thank-you,thank-you,thank-you.
P.S.This plug only took 21Hours to make verses about 200Hours by hand! Hooray!
Steve
www.seawardkayaks.com

[Patrick Toomey]

Nice job Steve, that is VERY cool! Did you extend the Z axis yourself or did you buy that from ShopBot?

[Steven Ree]

Thanks Patrick!
I cut and tack welded the rails from my original x ones......too easy. With a plunge of 18inches I had a small amount of play but it did not show up in this plug we cut from SM foam.
Steve

[Pascal Riendeau (Paco)]

AWESOME!!!

Aaahhhh!!!!! No dust collector?!

May I ask what you choose to glue up the foam?

Keep us post on the finish kayak.

[Steven Ree]

Paco
The glue is a latex base for foam, works excellent.
As for dust collection with 16inches of plunge it wouldn' be very effective but there is a devilbess plenum in the booth for extraction.
Steve

[Steven Ree]

Here is a picture of one of our thermoformed kayaks called the Cosma it can be viewed at
http://www.seawardkayaks.com/news.ne...x?z=2&n=43
as well

This is a pic of a mold made by hand ready to thermoform in the oven.

[Steven Ree]

Here is a pic of the hull me milled today with cut3d.

[John Hesp]

That is great. How do you manage to cut the vertical sides without the router hitting the plug? A very long cutter?

[Steven Ree]

Yes, we used a 1/2 inch by 6" long 4 flute bull nose bit to cut the foam. Running at 10000 rpm.
it worked flawless. We did run at 3ips for accuracy and slowed down to 1.5 for thin spots in the bow and keel areas so as to not snap off the thin foam. Bit vibration would only happen when starting the router but would smooth out.
Steve

[John Hesp]

Steven, what's the process after cutting the plug? I imagine that foam can't be used in the thermoforming oven.

John