[WoodSpinner]

Sweet!!! I cant wait.

John

Day 276 Monday, July 23, 2012


Back on the blower finally, our lathe free'd up about a week and a half ago and we finished up all the fixture locators and riser pads. I've loaded the fixture plate back onto the CNC machine today, tomorrow im going to indicate and pick it up tomorrow are resume cutting it. Im going to try and set up our GoPro camera to get some video cutting it although it won't really be to interesting, just cutting some slots and holes. Once both plates are done we should be ready to machine the housings .

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Some locators and pads cut on our lathe. These are the piece seen in the CAD photos from some earlier posts.



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Loading the fixture plate back onto our Mazak HJV.

[Dzuari]

Day 278 Wednesday July 25, 2012

Didn't get much done yesterday or today, was working on some other jobs. Today i got 2 of the 4 key ways cut to size, tomorrow im going to finish up the other two then cut all the holes for the pads and locators. Then hopefully cut a few cases ... and the second fixture plate :/

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Indicating in the center hole of the fixture plate to set the machines WPC(work piece coordinate). Used a snout coupler to keep the co-ax straight .



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Finishing passes on the key ways.



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Key Fits

[Dzuari]

Day 283 Monday July 30, 2012

Quick update, i have to get out of here but I'm cutting a blower




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Also, powder coat update. Building the environmental room

[harryn]

Thanks for all of the info on casting. For the first time, I began to understand how to make a hollow cast part.

[spv123]

This thread has to be one of the best on here. Thanks for taking the time to photograph and document the entire process.

[Dzuari]

Day 403

I see my photos from earlier post have screwed up, that will be fun to fix.

What's been going on

So, been extremely busy still. I've been working on a new job for one of our old customers for about a month or two also while helping out with our new powder coat line. We've been seeing a steady increase in work come back all year and i'm proud/astonished to say that we have had our best year ever in the past 65 years of being in business.

Upcoming Videos, I get a lot of people messaging me asking how to get stuff made so instead of replying the same thing to a bunch of people i figured i'd just make videos over the various processes, ill also be doing some more videos over design, 3D printing, pattern/mold making and CNC work. I'm also getting a price together on building my own CNC for light pattern work.

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Blower


Just giving you guys an update. Machine is finally free and the second fixture is on the machine. This is our 4th axis horizontal, This Op will cut the contour around the outside of the blower to fit any plate we like.





However, I'm heading out today to go down to the PRI show for the rest of the week and vacation after that so i wont be back till the 9th to begin programming and cutting. I'm going to try and get press credentials to do some videoing down at the show.

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Powder Coat System


In other news our powder coat system has been up and running for the past month or so, been real busy with that along with new work coming into our shop. Here is some photos. I'll have a video up hopefully sometime next month over the process and I'm going to get some more videos up over our foundry and CNC shop.








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Our History



I'll finish up with a throw back into my Family and its businesses history if anyone is interested.

We ran across some old family photos of when my grandfather started Phillips Patterns back in 1947. The building on the right is the chicken coop where it all started 65 years ago. My grandfather was working at a local pattern shop here in Muncie making $0.90 an hour, the foreman promised him a nickle raise in 60 days, when the 60 days came he didn't give it so my grandfather quit and started his own business making wood patterns by hand out of his chicken coop.



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This photo is sometime in the late 50's early 60's. We added our greensand line in 57-58 which consisted of a guy shoveling sand from the floor into a flask that sat on the squeezer(just like the squeezer you may have saw in Making a 671 Part 1 video).





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In the early 70's my father began work as a apprentice pattern maker, he's on the left.



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This is my Uncle, Larry Roetken, working on a riser for a pattern. He now owns his own tool shop. His shop was the one you saw in the first part of "Making a 671" video.




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Our Shop sometime in the late 80's early 90's.




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Our current main facility, This photo was taken in 2000, our machine shop, permanent mold, shell core and cleaning room are all housed here, our die cast and powder coat is just off to the right but cut out of the photo. We still own the shop in the previous photo which is our greensand foundry, it still sits on the same spot the chicken coop use to stand on.

[FannBlade]

Awesome! Love the history pics.

and I thought you were just going to have a powder coat setup,not a POWDER COAT SETUP! WOW let the production begin.

[joe's projects]

Please check it out guys, would appreciate some feedback.

Made using a variety of machines...all CNC was 3 axis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTDc...Q&feature=plcp

[Dzuari]

Day 472

I've had some more time to work on the blower, currently i am working with our CAM software provider to get our post-processor(CNC language converter) right so that our machine will read the correct code and not crash. The post-processor is about 90% correct, once its done though i'll be able to cut any kind of contour for any kind of plate we design on the case.

This photo is was taken about 5 minutes before i had to shut it down due to a problem with the G-code causing the machine to try and crash into the steel fixture below the case. this is that 10% im talking about that needs to be fixed .

This operation with cut the blower plate contours, from here it will be shot blasted once more, then put back onto our vertical mills to have a finishing pass the top and bottom sides of the case. then back onto this machine to drill/tap/face and bore the plate faces.

While the casting is starting to look like a finished blower this is still only 60-70% complete through the machining phase.

[Dzuari]

Starting To Look like a Blower

We've hired on a new machinist to help out with fixturing, Its helped out a ton and given me more time to work on the blower. Just finished up the 3D contouring Op that cuts the ends to match the plates. After this its going into a shot blast machine, then back onto the CNC's for another 2 Ops(finish facing, bore roughing/finishing, drilling and tapping).





We've been really busy lately, went from 22 employees to 33 in the past 2-3 months and I've got a greensand pattern and shell corebox to cut and 2 CNC fixtures to cut. Our powder coat is running good, a lot of people sending in quotes for work, Next week im going down to St. Loius for Casting Exo 2013 and maybe New York on the 22-23 for the 3D Printing Conference and Expo, I'll be posting pics on our Facebook and hopefully I can get some footage and upload it.

https://www.facebook.com/DiamondPRacing

I also plan on getting videos up again, I finally have enough money to get a 3D printer and hopefully some videos out of a method I've been tinkering with that lets me turn plastic printed parts into metal. Should be awesome for custom cylinder heads and 1 off parts that i know a lot of you have asked me about.

[chich2]

Wow!
Congrats on your success!

Chich

[Sally600]

Back on the blower finally, our lathe free'd up about a week and a half ago and we finished up all the fixture locators and riser pads.

[spv123]

I also plan on getting videos up again, I finally have enough money to get a 3D printer and hopefully some videos out of a method I've been tinkering with that lets me turn plastic printed parts into metal. Should be awesome for custom cylinder heads and 1 off parts that i know a lot of you have asked me about.

That will be excellent. I have been having a hell of a time trying to get a pattern off a historic 70's supercharger mount for modification.