Cheaper Than Therapy: A Build Thread

[marjama]

I’ve been following this build for a while. Now I really want to see what you’re gohunt to do with that trailer. Do you have another thread on that build?


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Still no build thread - but the overland trailer is starting to look like a trailer! I've been too busy with all the projects to get online much, but I'll post an update here when I start a thread.

On a positive note, I also started back on the Bronco. Working on replacing all of the door hinge mounting plates and attempting to control the rust in the door post. It's not horrible up at hinge level, but it's not great. I applied Ospho over the weekend, and made new hinge plates and retainers. Pics to follow. Stay tuned!

 

[marjama]

Hinge plate replacement

Hey gang! Yeah, it has been a while...still sidetracked on other projects, but still sneaking in a little Bronco work on the side.

The hinge plates inside my doors were a mess. Years ago pretty much every bolt broke off in the hinges and they was quite a bit of rust. I ended up opening the door post from the backside many years ago and did a temporary fix, but it is time to repair them correctly.

First pic is what came out of the door. The two lower thin sheet metal retainers were rusted through at the bottom. I pulled it all out, made new backing plates out of 3/8" cold roll plate and retainers made of 20 ga.

Internals were treated with Ospho, then some old POR15. That part was questionable - the POR was in rough shape! (Actually painted the hinge plates with it too, but blasted them and used Steel-It instead.) Made pieces to fill the hole, welded it back up and metal finished it. Last step will be to paint the inside with Eastwoods internal frame coating.

Not a huge amount of progress, but every bit counts!

 

[nvrstuk]

Looks Great Marcus! Wish you were here to fix mine that I botched by welding in one small pc of angle iron in as a stiffener.

Keep up the good work and I'll post up what NOT to do! lol

Glad you're back at it

 

[marjama]

No wonder our front door posts have such a problem with rust! This all came out of the bottom of the post when I jabbed a screw driver up inside. You can't really tell from the pic, but the pile on the floor is about 1" deep! The dirt & rust level was above the hole I made in the side.

Looks like I may have some extra rust repair to do (though I do plan to cut the rockers)...

 

[nvrstuk]

Another Engineering Marvel by Ford... I swear the engineers were told to design in dirt/leaf/crap traps between multiple layers of sheetmetal so they could sell more sheet metal for repairs! lol

 

[sprdv1]

No wonder our front door posts have such a problem with rust! This all came out of the bottom of the post when I jabbed a screw driver up inside. You can't really tell from the pic, but the pile on the floor is about 1" deep! The dirt & rust level was above the hole I made in the side.

Looks like I may have some extra rust repair to do (though I do plan to cut the rockers)...

get it right the first time

 

[marjama]

get it right the first time

The first time? I think this is actually the 3rd time I'm rebuilding this one! ;D

 

[sprdv1]

The first time? I think this is actually the 3rd time I'm rebuilding this one! ;D

well when at all possible right LOL

 

[marjama]

Geez...over a month since my last update! Things have been busy lately, and I'm still working on the overland trailer, but I have been doing some Bronco related stuff. I've been spending some of my free nights in the shop at work learning to program the CNC, and trying to teach myself to be better at machining parts. I've been doing pretty good learning to program, but getting a great finish is not something I'm a pro at yet.

Attached is a pic of the fixture I just finished making out of some scrap material to hold the plate that I will be machining the front and rear caliper mounts out of. It can be pretty tough to figure out how to fixture parts. In this case I'm making them out of a rectangle of 1/2" plate that has been milled down to size. The black part you see here is the 3D printed prototype that I made months ago. Hopefully you'll all see parts made of steel in the near future!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!

 

[nvrstuk]

Looks like you're getting it figured out Marcus!!

I have a Victor Journeyman torch that was my "plasma cutter" for decades! Love the fit and finish one can get with CNC and Plasma cutting programs... pretty cool.

Looks nice!

 

[marjama]

Looks like you're getting it figured out Marcus!!

I have a Victor Journeyman torch that was my "plasma cutter" for decades! Love the fit and finish one can get with CNC and Plasma cutting programs... pretty cool.

Looks nice!

I remember the old days of making parts with pretty much just an oxy/acetylene torch and a bench grinder! I know there are plenty out there that can make art with just about anything. I lean more towards relying on computers to help me look good

 

[Hinmaton]

Geez...over a month since my last update! Things have been busy lately, and I'm still working on the overland trailer, but I have been doing some Bronco related stuff. I've been spending some of my free nights in the shop at work learning to program the CNC, and trying to teach myself to be better at machining parts. I've been doing pretty good learning to program, but getting a great finish is not something I'm a pro at yet.

Attached is a pic of the fixture I just finished making out of some scrap material to hold the plate that I will be machining the front and rear caliper mounts out of. It can be pretty tough to figure out how to fixture parts. In this case I'm making them out of a rectangle of 1/2" plate that has been milled down to size. The black part you see here is the 3D printed prototype that I made months ago. Hopefully you'll all see parts made of steel in the near future!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!

That’s pretty damn cool. I’m a machinist by trade myself. I see you have a Kurt Vise and what looks to be either a Prototrac or Tormach maybe? I also see what looks like a keyless chuck?
Is this an R8 or Cat30/40 machine?
What are you using for programming?

80% of CNC machining is setup/fixturing, the rest is tooling, speeds and feeds, programming and machining strategies.
Keyless chucks are great for drilling, but never for machining.
I taught myself while running a production machine shop, so feel free to ask me anything about it. It’s completely doable, but can be frustrating doing it in a vacuum.

Hinmaton


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[marjama]

That’s pretty damn cool. I’m a machinist by trade myself. I see you have a Kurt Vise and what looks to be either a Prototrac or Tormach maybe? I also see what looks like a keyless chuck?
Is this an R8 or Cat30/40 machine?
What are you using for programming?

80% of CNC machining is setup/fixturing, the rest is tooling, speeds and feeds, programming and machining strategies.
Keyless chucks are great for drilling, but never for machining.
I taught myself while running a production machine shop, so feel free to ask me anything about it. It’s completely doable, but can be frustrating doing it in a vacuum.

Hinmaton


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Hey Hinmaton,

These machines are in the prototype shop where I work...and I pretty much have free reign to do whatever I want on the off hours. We've got two Prototrak mills, one 2 axis set up with R8 and one 3 axis set up with Cat30...or one of the variants. There is a decent amount of tooling for both, some good and some quite old. I typically use the 2 axis mill since I'm still learning and I feel like I'm less likely to crash it. We've also got a Prototrak lathe, and a Hurco 3 axis vertical machining center. (The Hurco pretty much sits unused - sad!)

I've been programming directly on the Prototrak RMX & RLX, both using their built in programming and by importing parasolid files. We do also have a seat of some other CAM software that integrates with Solidworks, but I'm not sure anyone uses it at the moment (SmartCAM maybe?).

I may hit you up for some help - I appreciate the offer! The two guys who work in our shop are pretty knowledgeable, but I don't think either would claim to be a machinist. They are fabricators who are super capable, but we're all pretty much hacks when it comes to machining

Hoping to find some time this week to make at least one test part. I'll post it up if I manage to get up and running!

 

[Hinmaton]

Hey Hinmaton,

These machines are in the prototype shop where I work...and I pretty much have free reign to do whatever I want on the off hours. We've got two Prototrak mills, one 2 axis set up with R8 and one 3 axis set up with Cat30...or one of the variants. There is a decent amount of tooling for both, some good and some quite old. I typically use the 2 axis mill since I'm still learning and I feel like I'm less likely to crash it. We've also got a Prototrak lathe, and a Hurco 3 axis vertical machining center. (The Hurco pretty much sits unused - sad!)

I've been programming directly on the Prototrak RMX & RLX, both using their built in programming and by importing parasolid files. We do also have a seat of some other CAM software that integrates with Solidworks, but I'm not sure anyone uses it at the moment (SmartCAM maybe?).

I may hit you up for some help - I appreciate the offer! The two guys who work in our shop are pretty knowledgeable, but I don't think either would claim to be a machinist. They are fabricators who are super capable, but we're all pretty much hacks when it comes to machining

Hoping to find some time this week to make at least one test part. I'll post it up if I manage to get up and running!

Great way to start anyway. It’s conversational programming, but at it’s heart it’s a canned cycle. A go to for any machinist.
Figuring out speeds and feeds, depth of cut, chip load, etc… that’s the key. Well that and a rigid set up.
My best simple cheat I can give you is:
Get an MSC account (if they don’t already have one) and order your own tooling for your projects.
Call and ask for a metal working specialist, explain what you are doing and allow them to help you choose the right tool, then dig further and ask for feeds, speeds, depth of cut, and cut direction for your application. Solid Carbide tooling is worth the money, they have plenty of good house brands.
Accupro or Hertel both make great tools. Niagara makes great mid level end mills. OSG too. Often you can download their catalogs or look at them online, they often these have all this information for you. But conversely, trying to get a good finish from something unknown that you don’t completely understand the tool geometry of, is really tough unless you have a lot of seat time with that machine. You’ll eventually know how the part is going to come out by listening and feeling the machine.
Best to start from a known.

Hinmaton


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[marjama]

That's all great advice Hinmaton - never thought about actually calling up MSC to get guidance!

Managed to get a part made yesterday. Everything generally worked out pretty well - fixturing worked well, and it actually fits!

I started a second part, but managed to crash the machine and break a 1/2" roughing mill. I thought it was going to start the next pass, and instead it was doing a rapid movement back to the start (totally my own fault!). Part still came out OK, but it either shifted on the fixture or I bumped the vise. Good thing I cut some extra plates! I need to check the mill and make sure it's still aligned before I continue. I also need to program the rear mount that is slightly different. I'm still working on the overland trailer, but it's getting close too. Progress!

 

[nvrstuk]

Marcus and Hinmaton.

I wish you guys would chat back and forth in ENGLISH so us poor back yard Victor torch fabricators could understand your newfangled jibberish!! LOL

I recognized a couple words is all...

 

[marjama]

Marcus and Hinmaton.

I wish you guys would chat back and forth in ENGLISH so us poor back yard Victor torch fabricators could understand your newfangled jibberish!! LOL

I recognized a couple words is all...

Sorry Brian! I feel like I should make at least one brake caliper mount using only a torch and a stick welder, just to remind myself of what it was like back on the farm! I'm sure I could get it close enough ;D

 

[Hinmaton]

Good looking part man!


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[marjama]

Good looking part man!


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Thanks! I won't post a pic of the one I scrapped

Managed to bust out a pair of rear caliper mounts last night. No crashes this time! Now I just need to finalize and machine the e-brake mount and brake mounting is done. On to other problems (and other distractions)!

I do find myself wondering how I should finish these parts. I've been eyeballing the black zinc plating kits from Creswell, and have also been looking into Cerakote. Kind of leaning toward getting set up to do Cerakote at home for smaller parts...I think I have everything I'd need minus an oven (well, and Cerakote!). The fit between these parts is quite precise so I can't add a lot of thickness unless I open up the ID (which is do-able), but I sure don't want everything to rust once it's back on the road. Thoughts?

 

[Yeller]

Ceracoat is awesome stuff and fairly easy to do consistently with great results. It is much easier to do at home than powder and is above and beyond more durable. I do know first hand how durable it is;D