Byrnes Inspired Saw -4, and a new toy.

At last, the motor arrived. A few days longer than their longest estimate, and it has an foreign, non-Australian plug, but that is trivial.

These permanent rare earth magnet motors are excellent. Soft start, electric braking, speed and direction controlled, rpm’s 200-4500/min. And compact, quiet, powerful. These are rated at 750w/1 hp. Price now around $aud 130.

In the meantime I have machined the underside of the saw table. Previously I had machined the top of the table while it was attached to the base, but later realized that I should have done the underside as well.

I had to attach the table top directly to the milling machine table, and I puzzled for a while how to secure it to the mill. Then I remembered buying some neat little T slot cam clamps some years ago (see pic) and they worked perfectly.

Low profile (8mm above the bed) T slot cam clamps held the workpiece perfectly with a 50mm cutter. I can’t remember what they are called or what I paid. But I think that this has been their first use.
And I also machined the blocks which slide along the 8mm rods, and hold the fence. I do usually mark the waste clearly… guess why!

And, back to Bellerophon, I needed some 1mm and 3mm thick parts cut. I could have used a coping saw or an electric version, but I must be getting lazy. I spent a day or two on the computer to produce some dxf files and asked a friend to use his new laser cutter.

It is a Creality Falcon2 diode laser cutter. Cuts ply up to 20mm thick, and a working area of 400 x 400mm. We even experimented with cutting brass, and it did a creditable job on 0.25mm thick brass. In the pic it is doing a test board 9.5mm thick ply, to test for the best settings for that material. It is listed only as an engraving tool, but its main use in current hands I believe will be as a cutter of ply, solid wood, acrylic, paper, cardboard, etc etc.
It has an air assist to blow out dust and vaporised debris away from the laser beam. But the light workpieces need to be fastened securely! The light cut pieces can be partly dislodged if no tabs are used, and can cause the moving head to move the workpiece.
This machine impressed me so much that I have ordered one for myself.


And I used the pieces on my Bellerophon.
Well, actually these were cut by the Commercial laser business. But the tiny “Kant Twist” type clamps were made by me a few years ago and I find them very useful on my model ship builds.
These are the 3mm thick parts which were cut by my friend Brendan. And the high tech clamping method worked perfectly, keeping the parts angled inwards a few degrees as intended.

Can’t wait to install the motor on the saw, and finally use it!