johnsmachines

machines which I have made, am making, or intend to make, and some other stuff. If you find this site interesting, please leave a comment. I read every comment and respond to most. n.b. There is a list of my first 800 posts in my post of 17 June 2021, titled "800 Posts"

Tag: PLA

August 21, 2020

Spur Gears -1

The model Armstrong cannon has 7 gears, 2 of which are bevel gears, and 5 spur gears, including one quadrant gear.

4 of the original spur gears. These position the carriage on the chassis for loading and firing. There is also a decoupling mechanism on the second shaft. (Portland cannon)

The spur gears will be machined and cut from bronze, brass or steel. I have a set of module 1 cutters, which are close in 1:10 scale to the originals which are close to module 10.

The bevel gears I have made by casting them in bronze, teeth and all, and they are pretty darned good. Not perfect, but they will be hidden from sight in the gear case. They seem to mesh pretty well, but, if they are not up to the job of elevating the barrel I will cut some replacements.

The biggest gear is a spur gear, and it has a brake drum as part of the casting. It is a bit more complicated than a simple cut spur gear. Apart from the brake drum, the gear teeth have flanges at each end of the teeth, which will make them difficult to cut, unless I add the flanges later. I guess that the original was cast, teeth and all.

From below, the biggest gear with the brake drum on the left of the picture. The brake band is a steel band. (Port Fairy cannon)

I have decided to cast this gear also.

You can see the flanges more clearly in this photo. (Port Fairy cannon)
So I have 3D printed casting blanks with teeth and flanges (left) and without teeth and flanges (right). I will cast both, then decide which to use. 58mm diameter, 25mm wide. The prints are colourless PLA. I have had problems with plate adhesion with this PLA.
The bevel gear case. Cast bronze. Some more finishing required.
The cast bevel gears. Since this pic I have machined bores and improved the finish. PLA blanks.
And can you guess what this fingernail size piece is? It will cast in bronze.
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February 2, 2020

3D Printing is FUN! (but still slow)

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My 3D printer.  Bought from Amazon on a special offer.  $AUD279.  Worked straight out of the box after minimal assembly, and using the supplied plastic filament (PLA).  You can see the large gear on the platten which I drew up using a CAD program.  I used the software (Cura) supplied by the printer manufacturer (Creality).   The printer is a Creality CR -10S.  The “S” refers to a “filament out” sensor which I have not yet installed.  I read some reviews of the printer before spending my money, and so far I am very happy with it.  You might notice some bracing bars which I bought separately on Ebay.  Not sure if they are necessary, but they might improve the print quality by reducing vibration in the printer.

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These gears and shafts were printed.  They were used to check the sizes of parts for my next model cannon build.  I used a program called “Gearotic” to plan the gear module, teeth numbers, distance between centres etc.  Gearotic is also great fun.

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The printed gear and pinion quadrant on a background of a photo of the real cannon.  On my model the gear and pinion will be made of steel or brass, machined from bar stock.

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Another part sitting on a photo of the original.  This demonstrated that I had got the corner chamfer a bit wrong.  Much better to discover the fault at this stage! 

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A half size print of the barrel.  This was just for fun.  The final part will be ~300mm long, and will be machined from steel.  This print took almost 4 hours.

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A print of the centre column which the cannon chassis sits on and traverses around.  It is ~60mm tall.  It will be tricky to machine from solid bar.  Could be fabricated in pieces and silver soldered together, but I am considering using the printed part to make a mould and cast the part in brass or bronze……   The original cannon column has an 5-600mm extension into the concrete base which my model will not need.

So far all of these prints have been made from PLA filament, which I read is easy to use, tough, rather brittle, and has a low melting point.  It is also inexpensive (about $20-25 for 1 kg).  I am still on the supplied small roll which came with the printer.  Future prints will be in colour!

The weather is a bit cooler today, so I might get back into the workshop and make some metal swarf.

 

 

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