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

[syeven_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.


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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

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And this is 50% of the plug cut today!

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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 (http://www.seawardkayaks.com)

[patricktoomey]

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

[syeven_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

[paco]

AWESOME!!!

Aaahhhh!!!!! No dust collector?!

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

Keep us post on the finish kayak.

[syeven_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

[syeven_ree]

Here is a picture of one of our thermoformed kayaks called the Cosma it can be viewed at
http://www.seawardkayaks.com/news.net/DetailsNews.net.aspx?z=2&n=43
as well
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This is a pic of a mold made by hand ready to thermoform in the oven.

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[syeven_ree]

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

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

[syeven_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

[hespj]

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

John

[Towersonline]

Steven, Here are some pics of a 18 ft Shopbot we purchased and turned it into two 8 ft Shopbots.

You might be interested in the method used to reduce the flex in the Z axes. Hope it gives you some ideas.
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[Towersonline]

Some day I'll get it figured out how to upload images correctly.

[syeven_ree]

Hey guys.

John, Firstly about the plug, you can touch and fair any flaws with Quick set dry-wall compound, and then coat the plug with cloth and epoxy, after that we would PVA the plug then use tooling gel and make our mold. The epoxy must be sealed as the gel would bubble off and seperate. That can be any latex paint or? before the PVA. The other method would be to pour a little acetone inside the plug edge from the back and this will melt the foam out instantly then do the reverse for a positive part.
We could carve eps foam at the price of $14000.00 per part but, I can re-tool for less.

Bill, Now that is a long Z drop ! I like the bit extension! must have been havoc on the bearings.
To adjust your photo's 1) After your sentence and your picture upload go back to the end of the
sentence and hit enter to create a new line 2) In the post box go to the end where you will see the file of the pic e.g. \h kfhakf.jpeg} highlite the whole thing then right click the mouse and select CUT then go to the line below the text right click and go paste. I hope this helps.
As far as the table goes its too bad the bed was not adjustable then its much easier to cut detail files with a shorter plunge,wonder what they made out of foam eh?

Steve

[cpp]

Hey Steve,
What was the product name of the latex adhesive you used to laminate the foam, I would love to try it out. Ive been using sprayfoam and it isnt very appealing. Thanks!

[syeven_ree]

good old water based contact cement.it has a green label, look in your local hardware store.
Steve

[Towersonline]

Steve,

Thanks for the photo posting help.

The 18ft Bot was used to make molds in a small boat building operation. When I got the machine it was just a pile of steel.
The photos were from the original owners records.

I did try the bit extender. After 5 minutes I removed it and tossed it out.

Bill Thorpe

[geoff]

the glue is by Lepage, pres-tite green contact cement, water based, 100% solvent free.

[jhicks]

Steve, very nice and ingenious work on the lift and Z layout. Not to mention the entire line of work and capability you have. I love inspiration like this.
Keep on it.
Do you think a second Z would make any sense for cutting time in half? One running the upper and one the lower halves or perhaps even one on each side top to bottom following same X and Z with opposing Y axis.
Just a thought