[engnerdan]

Some of you, who have read my machine build thread, may have caught that I was getting married soon. Well soon was this last Saturday. For the reception my brother in law brewed 2 batches of beer for us, one was a Nut Brown Ale and the second was a Mint Chocolate Stout. I decided to make a couple tapper handles for the beer. I am not very artsy so this was a bit of a stretch for me, I hit up google images and decided on an acorn for the Nut Brown Ale and a mint leaf for the Mint Chocolate Stout. I did all the CAD work in SolidWorks and used HSMxpress to generate the g-code files. The Nut Brown Ale tapper has over 7 hours of spindle time into it. I profiled with a 1/4" end mill, cut the acorn lines with a 1/16" ball nose end mill, cleared the lettering with a 1/32" flat end mill, finished the lettering with a 0.020" ball nose end mill. The Mint Chocolate Stout has about 3 hours of spindle time into it. To add to the stress of getting these done the week before the wedding, I had a problem with my spindle motor and had to swap in a backup while I got it checked out. The backup motor is on a 1 hp 1800 RPM motor (only willing to run it up to 3600 RPM). If I had my factory spindle motor on the machine I could have cut the cycle times nearly in half. I used 2 pieces of 1X4 walnut to make the blanks for the handles. The Nut Brown Ale is 1.5" thick 3.4" wide 6" tall and the Mint Chocolate Stout is 1.5" thick 3.4" wide 8" tall.

Ultimately I got the handles done in time, and everybody who got to see them really liked them.

CNC mill acorn beer tapper - YouTube

CNC mill mint beer tapper - YouTube

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The handles all done with milling, just needing stems and finish
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The handles installed at the wedding
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[mklotz70]

Very cool!
I'm thinking you probably could have made a plate to clamp to the spindle nose that would hold a dremel so you could have a 20,000rpm spindle for the fine work.......and still come out time ahead!

[engnerdan]

Very cool!
I'm thinking you probably could have made a plate to clamp to the spindle nose that would hold a dremel so you could have a 20,000rpm spindle for the fine work.......and still come out time ahead!

Never crossed my mind. But I have thought about getting one of those water cooled high speed spindles in the future. Well lucky I don't have anything I need to make for a little while.

I got an email about my spindle motor. I should have the stock motor back up and running next week. I also have a 8,000 RPM 3HP/5HP motor showing up tomorrow (yeah going down that road again), but that is not a bolt on. I have to design an new end bell for the motor so that it bolts in place of the factory motor which has a metric D5 flange of 90L size. (135mm locating ring, bolt circle is 165mm).

[mklotz70]

I was chatting with another guy about a mount he made for his Rotozip to use on his lathe......that's why I was thinking of it. I think I'd go with the Rotozip.....much beefier! If you're going to do lots of engraving type work, I think I'd just hold out for the water cooled spindle

I feel like such a slacker when I get on here and see everything you guys are doing!!! LOL!!!! It's probably the drugs that allow me to tolerate the idiots at my job, but I just don't have that kind of ambition these days! lol At least I haven't gotten fired!!

[AUSTINMACHINING]

That's cool, I haven't done any wood. My son brews my beer. He made a kegerator from a refrigerator including a tap on the door. I need to make one of those handles.

[engnerdan]

That's cool, I haven't done any wood. My son brews my beer. He made a kegerator from a refrigerator including a tap on the door. I need to make one of those handles.

I learned a couple things really fast when working with wood for the first time.
1. The Z axis ball screw throws a lot of oil off the bottom when it rapids up or down - I ended up using some magnets and a shop rag to hang from the bottom of the head between the vise and the ball screw
2. The Z axis ball screw throws from the top when making rapid moves - If I had the shroud on it might have helped but would not have blocked it all. I ended up folding up a piece of cardboard to putting in front of the ball screw to keep it from tossing oil over the top.