Birth of a velocity stack
 

Hi All,

I thought you may like to see what it takes to make the velocity stacks.


First... it starts life as a 12' long, 4" diameter T6061 aluminum bar, weighing 178 Lbs.

Next, I cut off 3.5" sections that weigh about 4.5 Lbs each.


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Next, it takes a trip into the Mill. The first procedure is to pre-drill a 1" hole down the center, and cut a nice flat flange so it will run true in the lathe. Also, there are 3 bolt holes drilled and tapped so the aluminum slug can be bolted onto a fixture that the lathe can hold. (this method helps reduce waste too)




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Once the slug is prepped, it is bolted onto the lathe fixture, and put into the jaws.

The CNC program only requires 8 minuets to run... but the metal chips that come off of this part are long and stringiny... so it takes about 15 minuets to complete. The lathe has to be stopped, and the striners have to be removed constantly to make a clean part, and to avoid breaking tools.


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The final cut on the lathe leaves a very thin bit of aluminum holding the stack onto what is left of the slug, so a couple easy whacks of a rubber mallet will break it free.


Once free of the scrap, it's over to the mill for one more step. This is where the bolt holes and the airbox clearance slots are cut.


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Once done, the final part weighs only 5.3 oz. With a little quick math... it looks like 93% of the original aluminum slug has gone to the scrap bucket.



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Cool thread, thanks :)

Preeeettyyyy.... :drool:

very cool !


tim

Nice process.

Tony, as a favor to myself and any other tool junkies on the board, howzabout a couple of pics of your machine tools!?!?

CNC stuff gets me hot! ;)


Rex

I don't have any good pics of the machines... but here's a pic of the shop that I used for my catalog.


The mill is on the right, and my lathe is over toward the left.



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Tony that shops looks unbelievable, I'd love to work in a shop like that some day. Nice stacks, too.

Do you get a favourable rate when returning the waste metal to suppliers/recyclers?

Nope. our economy has gotten bad, and I only get about $0.25/Lb for the "Chips", and I get about $0.50/lb for the "Solids."

When I first opened my shop, I was getting around $1.25/lb for the solids.

BUT... the thing that makes me mad is that my virgin materials has only dropped by about 10%

Damn, is the shop always that clean? If it's like my garage, the answer is a definite "NO". :mrgreen:

Capitalism at its finest.......

During a long production run... no. There will be scrap, and metal chips all over the place, but I try to clean up after. Right now... it's a mess from the stacks.

However... my nephew lives just up the street, and during the summer, I pay him $10 to come in, and sweep, and do some general cleaning. He's only 13, so he stops in whenever he needs a few $$$. (and helps me keep up with my messes)

For him it's good money. He spends an hour or so sweeping and wiping the machines down... and steels a couple Pepsi's out of my frig.


Now my home shop (garage)... it's a total mess. I can't tell you the last time I've cleaned my work benches.

Yup... you are right.

Regardless... when I do a job, the materials are paid for in the quote. SO... when I take the scrap in... it's free money.

NOW... I have a buddy with a grind shop. He does precision OD grinding on carbide blanks. Carbide scrap at one point was $14/lb, and it's very heavy. He could actually bid jobs just for the price of the scrap. But his price has dropped to about $5/lb, and he kind of got screwed because the scrap was his paycheck.


BTW... the scrap industry's prices drooped over a couple weeks time. So literally, one time I took 1000# of scrap and got $800, and the net time I got $140. (the low price was $0.14)

[quote=Dr Honda;271800]

For him it's good money. He spends an hour or so sweeping and wiping the machines down... and steels a couple Pepsi's out of my frig.

quote]

huh, when I was 13 I was stealing more than Pepsi's out of my Uncle's frig...

I was doing a Google search for something completely different, and this came up in the search results. Never saw this before on here. This was very cool to see!