Michigan summer meet 2015 - 5/5/15 update

[SSEiMan01]

Probably arrive Friday night, head out Sunday sometime. Put me down as being in the Tahoe, if the weather is ok I'll fold down the back seat and crash there. I may be alone, not sure yet.

[Wes]

This may seem a little odd, but would anyone be interested in casting something? Assuming Matt wouldn't mind a mini forge at his house...which I don't think he would if I were to guess.

I am currently working on a wax filament that can be 3D printed. If someone was to send me a .stl file, I can print it/them to be cast out of aluminum.

It would basically be this, but cleaner because of a much lower ash content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFnfLsrSuAM

[MattStrike]

Um, 100% yes!!! What is the size limit/cost for the 3D print??

[Wes]

Build dimensions are limited to 225mm x 150mm x 145mm. There would be no cost at all for printing, or the wax material.

I have no materials for the foundry part yet, but I will probably end up building one of these. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZhsJ6S4wQQ or something similar.

[Wes]

Or...if someone has access to a mill, I could probably talk the boss into donating some of our standard machinable wax if someone had plans for parts too large to be printed. We would just have to document it, which I don't think would be a problem considering the amount of cameras that show up to these meets, lol. Then we would be limited to crucible volume.

[MattStrike]

I have been wanting to build a furnace for aluminum casting. But just haven't had the time yet. I've got a few small things I'd like to try, like an oil filter bracket that has ports for AN fittings instead of the spin-on filter end.

I have a few solid pieces of aluminum that I could donate.

[CMNTMXR57]

Arrive Friday night late, head home Sunday afternoon. Let's hope Kyle doesn't steal my thunder again by showing up 30 seconds earlier

With him buying the blower for his car, I wonder if it will be done by then!?

[MARCTHEDUBBS]

Let me know if you need aluminum. I work at a metal distributor. I can get a few pieces of stuff to donate.

[WhiteArrow3800]

Probably looking at late Thursday or mid Friday arrival and ideally head out Monday morning.

[Wes]

I have been wanting to build a furnace for aluminum casting. But just haven't had the time yet. I've got a few small things I'd like to try, like an oil filter bracket that has ports for AN fittings instead of the spin-on filter end.

I have a few solid pieces of aluminum that I could donate.

Send over the .stl files, and I will print them. I can put together a forge for melting the metal, if you don't think you will have time to build yours between now, and then. We would still need a kiln do do investment casting. Or we could go with green sand, but finish would be a little rougher.

This would be really cool to do, but I am questing where we could fit this in to the schedule. I could take Monday off, instead of heading North on Sunday. Maybe I could mail people their wax pieces, and they can prep their investment molds before the meet so we would just do the actual pours at the meet?

[00Beast]

I'm a maybe at this point. I'll be in Dallas Sunday evening/Wednesday sometime, so it'd basically be get home, do laundry, pack up and head out again...

[MattStrike]

The difficult part is gathering materials, I haven't researched this in a while now. But I'm thinking that the weekend or two before we could get everything setup, prep the molds, so that all we'd need to do is cast at the meet.

I might be able to get an electric kiln, for pottery, but it's small-ish.

What kind of porosity should I expect with investment casting? I'll need to re-educate myself, last time I looked into it was for green sand.
Also what is the print resolution with the wax? I was thinking we could make some kind of coin or something too if anybody was interested.

[Wes]

Coins would be awesome, and fairly easy. Could print many at a time too. If you watched that yoda key chain video, what he did was called a tree. That would probably be the most efficient way to cast in the quantity we would go for.

The lowest resolution I have tried so far was a surface calibration print @ 50 micron layer height. The wrench behind it was 200 micron for reference.



This Yoda-Buddha was 200 layer height just for speed. I plan on testing this model at 50 micron tomorrow.


If we go the plaster, and kiln route, we will be able to get some decent detail. It wont be jeweler quality, but we won't be too far off if the polishing test goes as well as with our other waxes.

[Wes]

I really liked the idea of making coins, so I thought I would post a coin idea. It was just from here

I am not very skilled with editing software. I wanted to add the top left logo of the site onto the center of the coin, but I couldn't figure out how to get the outline, and text w/o the black back ground. If someone was bored,and felt like adding that in, that would be cool to see.

Or, if you guys would like to post some ideas of you own, I would love to see them too.

Anyways...here is all I have so far.


This is the yoda statue after some manipulation, just to show the level of detail we are would be working with. The one to the far right is a 50 micron print. That one will be cast in aluminum, or brass in the next few weeks hopefully.

[MattStrike]

Those look great!

I'm working on a CAD file for the oil filter adapter. How can I get it to you (pm me).

[Zeik75]

Sorry for the late reply but I should be coming for sure and might bring a friend but thats not for sure yet. Ideally i would like to get there thursday night otherwise id waste all friday driving, id leave early monday too. Hopefully ill have some custom coilovers to show off too, but thats being extreemmmmlllyyy hopeful...

As for the casting idea i agree that would be sweet!

[Zeik75]

Also Ryan id be super interested in the detail shop tour!

[Vegafan]

I didn't realize this was up for this years meet.... I haven't been on the forum much in the past few months. But I am planning on attending, and hopefully in something made by GM with a 3800! I don't care to have a repeat of last year in my "Special Edition" SUV..

[MattStrike]

The track posted their schedule, looks like there will be a T&T on Sunday. But there may be an event going on as well, I'll need to put a call in to the track and see.

[crash93ssei]

Timing may shift for me a bit, we are looking at taking a family trip to New York to visit family and friends at the end of May, then from there head to North Carolina for more friends and family. We will probably head straight from there to the meet and probably arrive on Saturday evening and head home Sunday evening. Shorter time I know, but we will still make it