Ok,... so I didn't go to work today for OT. The hospitals census is low anyways so they probably would of said no. I'm definately going to try tomoor though. Anyways,... Check it out. Oh this update is for some of today. There's going to be another update early in the morning(for me atleast) that will cover the rest of the day and night.
Jun-02-2006
Perfecto. I cut down the bit again making sure it was perfectly straight and even on each side. I think I mentioned before that the center of this bit does not cut, so I removed it. Why did i remove it? Because it doesnt cut:) Seriously though, it doesnt cut, it leaves circular scratches and gouges. With the center ground away like this I wont have to worry about that:) I'm going to name this bit:) I'm going to call it the,... "Damn, I wish I had a milling machine" bit. Manufactured by tribaloverkill, of course:) Or should I say designed by TRIBALOVERKILL manufactured by A.C.Ryan:) LOL.
Nothing like a nice clean grind:) LOL.
Check out the cutting angle. I gave it less angle this time too for strength.
Anyways,... WHAM! To identical spin block thingies.
This is where I am right now. I fused the very bottom block thingie to another 1/4" disc. This thing will be the bottom portion of the reservoir that will spin the contents. You remember the first block on the reservoir with the coil? The blocks overal height was 7/8". The new blacks height is only 1/2":) How cool is that:) The spin should be slower then the first reservoir but I have a feeling it will only be a bit slower. But thats ok. Im still very happy with the new look and height.
Going out real quick to get some more sand paper, a coffee, a Gelati from Rita'sl, some Corona and I think thats it? Till then.
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OMG I had went to bed. I was so tired I couldnt even think. I was falling asleep in the shop! I couldnt even write the update! LOL. Well,... here's what I was able to do.
Jun-03-2006
First, here sPL932G. I got some UV coloring in the mail today so I filled her up. Looks cool eh? This reservoir to broken. First,... I think I tapped the holes to deep because the barbs got sucked all the way into the holes while tightening them but I don't know why I would do that? These other plugs seemed to fit better so I'm thinking the plugs that I was using were smaller then I thought. for now on I'm going to stop very early when tapping the holes to compensate for the different lengths of plugs and barbs. Thats crazy though because the ones that are longer will stick out more:(
Here I'm drilling the port holes. I'm using the flat cutting bit again. I tried using water this time as oppose to a bit of oil and it cut so much better! The idead is that you want to keep the acrylci cool! The water also lubes a bit too. You see the acrylic strands? Thats how you know you are seriously cutting well. I mentioned this a while back when working on blackout.
Here are the holes all drill out. Notice the slight angle with the two outter holes. It's perfect! The reservoir is going to spin a lot slower this time. Very nice.
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I didn't go to work tody because they didnt need me but I am about to go to work right now. 8 hours of Ot is better then nothing:) Anyways, this is a good update.
Jun-04-2006
Using the router today. Here I have it all setup to begin making the core of the reservoir. I have to cut a strip of acrylic thats atleast 32" long with an overall width of 1/4". Easy, Iv'e done it before but this time,... one side has to have a 45 degree angle:) FUN! Thats going ot be kind of hard because one side of the strip will have the 1/4" width while the other side will only have a width of what,... 3/16". Damn.
I have to stop skipping around like this. Done. They are done. It wasn't all that hard either. If you set it up right it will work just fine.
1/4", 45 degree angle. Nicely done.
Now this is pretty cool. This gives me ideas:) It's reminds me of the movie "The Fly". Maybe aliens? I dont know.
All 16 pieces ready to go. All about 4.25" long.
Holding it together, this is what I'm shooting for.
Next to the tube it will be going inside.
With some fine tuning she'll go in nicely.
Get in there,...
I have all the pieces for two of these bad boys all except the bubble chamber rings. I'll make those another time. I want to make the cool stuff first.
Going ot work,... I'll be working on this when I get home. Peace out!
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Did some work today. Didn't really feel like it seeing that am tired as hell. Anyways,... pictures.
Jun-05-2006
Here are the pieces for one of the cores,.... sanded and ready to go.
Done. Well,... not really done but glued together. I like it. I just thought it would of fit together better.
Just got done sanding the length down to size.
Testing it out. Definitely looks cool but I have a feeling its not going to do what I want it to do.
Working on the second core. Here I just got done gluing two pieces together.
Both done with length sanded to size.
Using some 400grit wet sand, actually I took it up to 800grit this time, which would be extra extra fine:)
Here I sanded the grooves with 400grit and polished the raised portions.
Polished the end some. Need more work.
More testing. I dont think it's going to work right. I need it to pulse. The light is all over the place so I dont think it will pulse all that well. So what Im going to do is paint the grooves black to cut off the light when the barrel things passes it. I used black model paint. Waiting for them to dry.
In the mean time,... here are the spinning ring things. VERY nice.
Ok, what you are reading RIGHT now, as in this very text, it has been several hours since I worte the above update. I wrote it I just didn't post it. Was tired. Anyways,... within these several hour I have decided that I dont like the cores. Idont like the idea thhat I had to paint them. That just seems slopy to me for whatever reason. I want to try something else. Also,... the fact that the pieces didnt fit together perfectly is driving me nuts! It's an illness I have:( I have to figure something out. I want UV blue stipes inside that tube. I ness the spinning barrel to stobe as it turns. I have to think.
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OMG,... so many pics!!! LOL. This is going to be a COOL update!!! I didn't like the old strobe core so I made a new one:: I changed the way things work too. Check it out!
Jun-06-2006
Here's the old cores after cleaning it up and polishing it down. It's looks cool but its not good enough. I mean it's not even all that bright. I think polishing it takes away the brightness. I tried dusting it again and it was only a bit brighter. Sucky.
Looks like candy:) Yum.
A tiny piece of green. WHAA!! See how much brighter! Anyways,...
Here's the old cores dusted. Not all that much brighter. Scraping them,...
The new concept! This is a little test piece. Just wanted to see how well it would work. I cut the mating grooves because I didnt feel like just gluing two separate peices to form the cross.
Instead of putting the core inside a center tube/ shaft, the core now becomes the shaft in which the barrel uses to spin. This way there is no tube to catch excessive light and lower the quality of the strobe. Also,... the clear panes used to catch the strobe and flash it outside the tinted barrel will be 1/8" closer to the core which means a better flash of light. So it looks good. Lets do it!
Here are the pieces that will form the cores. Used the router to cut down the width.
Taped them in two's to sand down to length. I could of taped bye four's, I dont know why I didnt. Oh well.
Crap! I didnt get a picture of the scroll saw setup! I hate when I do that! I set the scroll saw up like I did the router. That is I used a rail. I set the length away from teh blade a bit less then the center of the strips. I test it out sevberal times before making my actual cuts. The rail has to be pefectly straight too! So important! If it not the blade will start to run off coarse even though your using a rail. After I set up the rail I made a back stop so I couldnt cut to far. Each cut was had the very same lenght. I cut a bit past the center because thats better then not cutting far enough. When you slide the pieces together they wont come flush. Once I nailed all that it was easy:) Just run the pieces along the rail until you hit the stop. Remove the piece then flip it to the other side and do it again. Once you made both cuts, you pull on the center piece thats left until you can grabis as close to the base as possible. It will smap clean right off. Might leave a litt nub but that files down so easily.
Here's one! BUT! I need eight side not four! Keep watching,...
Lights up nicely. The rings fit and spin nicely.
Whats is that! Is that the other 4 sides? NICE! Check out how I got them to fit.
I knifed them! I cut 45 degree angles on each side half way up. I used the router to do this! I was sweating bullets! Didnt want to pull a Hobbes:) Hobbes that will never die dude. When I use my router I think of you, and your thumb, what was your thumb. You the man, taking one for the team! LOL. So yea the pieces were crazy small! I had to make little tape handle just so I could slide them through the router! It worked great though!
VOILA!! This core is not glued, it's being held together by the rings. Look at that fit!! I still cant believe how well they came out. Absolutely amazing.
I bit blurry but ehh. You can still see the tight azz fit.
Look how damn beautiful it is! I cant stop looking at it!
Heres the second one. All the pieces perfectly cut to size.
Nice.
Here you can see the fit really well.
They light up nicely.
Glued.
This is a COOL pic! It's a photo! Looks drawn! Check out the fit, so flush!
Here's where I finished. These are the tinted panes that will form the barrel.
Im so tired. I work all through the ngiht and through most of the day trying to get this right. It paid off. Anyways,... I might be working on this tomorrow. till then,...
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I nice clean steel pipe. I am doing the same thing I did so the acrylic tube in sPL. I'm scratching a straight line across the pipe. Not goingto cut this bad boy in half though:)
Whats this wrapped to the pipe?
Whats under there?
TA DAAAA!!! The tinted panels I cut before. They are going to make up this spinngin barrel thing I have planned. You see,... I tape the acrylic to the pipe and line up the piece with the line I scratched into the pip earlier. This way the piece will be bent as straight as possible. You dont want to much tape on the acrylic, just enough so that it holds it under pressure. So I tape it down and then heat it slowly. There pieces heat up nicely seeing that they are small. Once they are all flabby I take to this cardboard wrap around and wrap it pulling the piece snug so that it's straight. I wrap it all the way around wrenching it with hands as tight as I can get it. I then tape it so it stays. I let it cool down slowly at first. After a couple of minutes I turn on the shop vac which is,...
... connected to the end of the pipe which sucks cool air through the center cooling off the piepe and piece nice and quick. You want the piece as cool as possible before you really let it up because if its still a bit warm, it will bend out of shape a tid bit. The pieces won't look pretty when you take them out because you'll see marks formed in the acrylic. Easily saned out though. The most important part is that it takes the right shape.
This is kind of what I'm shooting for,... so not done though. You see the line? This line will be spinning and will be flashing whenever it passes over one of the points of the center core. The tint kills alot of the other light so even if the lines arent all that bright and flashy they will still stand out very nicely. I think the lines are going to light up nicely though:)
No line. Nice and dark but you can still still the core. The tinted panels are distorted because I didnt sand them down yet nor did I buff them out.
With a bit of light on, no line.
Bit of light with line.
Very dark with no uv light on the inside.
Nice! Can't see through it. I might make one of these for blackout with a green core!
UV light on the inside.
I noticed that there was alot of shrinkage with the acrylic when heated and formed. I mean alot of shrinkage! Some of them shrunk in length as much as 3/32"!! At first I thought it was me. I cut these bad boys to 3 - 7/8". I was thinking that maybe I cut them smalled an just didnt realize it? Doubt it. They are now 3 - 3/4" after cleaning up the length. This is not a huge problem but if it really mattered I would have to make them all over again! NOTE,... shrinkage may occur. Leave a bit of length on before heating and bending. This goes for smaller pieces I guess. I dont think I had this probalme with larger ones. I dont know. Anyways,... going to back to work:) PEACE!
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Another cool and WEEEEEIRD update! I say weird because I thought I was seeing things,... whatever, I tell you about it later. Anyways,.. on with the update!
Jun-08-2006
These pieces are going to be the clear panes that pretty much hold the entire inner barrel together.
Once again here's the router setup to cut the pieces to their target length's. I should of did this for the tinted,... I wasn't thinking. I bound all the tinted pieces with tape and used the sander to cut them to length. It did the same job btu this way makes more sense. It doesnt even matter though because the tinted pieces shrank while bending. Huh?
What the [email protected]#$ was that? I thought I saw,... nah, it couldn't be. He's dead. Hmmm,...
ANYYYYYWAYS,.... The clear panes have to be the same length as the tinted ones. I just have a bit more to cut off. I'm goingto mark the clear one so I know where to stop. Now, where the hell is my pencil??? I really to to clean this place up,...
Ahhh,... there it is.
Ehhh,... mmmmm.
Where the hell is,....
Come on! I just saw it back there,... argh.
There it is,...
Got it:)
My pencil:) Yea:)
Cut some nice grooves in the ends of the clear panes. I'll show you how,...
Very nice. you see the purpose for those in a minute.
Here's how. Using the router and the sliding thingy that came with it,.. I super glued the piece of what was an aluminum square. I cut it up because well,... it wasn't all that square, lol. I tape both mthe aluminum and the slider thing so I can reomove them when done.
I then clamped another piece of aluminum to that. This is the back stop.
To take the acrylic piece and bolt it down making sure it resting flush against the router table and the back stop. You then just slide it to the router bit. You have to adjust the hieght of the router bit too. You have to go slow. the bit is cutting alot at once.
The clear piece is actually sandwiched between two aluminum pieces. Reason,.. I dont want the clamp digging intothe acylic. It might crack the acrylic too. Plus I can apply more pressure to hold it still.
Here's why I cut the grooves. I want these clear panes to come as close to the core points as possible for the best flashes possible.
Before I glue all this together I want to sand and polish the inside edges. Looking good.
You can't really see it all that well,.. but it's so clear you can see the table through the edges. It's so cool looking.
What your looking at here is the inside of the other side through the clear side. you follow?
It's crazy looking when you see it with your own eyes though.
Here's the underside of the tape which is stuck to the acrylic.
WHAM! the tinted panels are not glued but the clear ones are. How friggin cool! I left the clear panes alot longer for a reason. They didnt need to be this long though,...
Black as the night.
Lit up!
Look at those edges glowing!
Damn this is so cool. I love it. This is why I do this.
You see the light being projected onto the table through the clear pane. I was hoping it would do this. This reservoir is going to make the insde of your computer look like a friday night at the club:) In this pic the clear pane isnt evn over a core point nor is the outer edge polished:)
This is a core point. You really cant tell with the camera but in person the panel IS brighter over the core points. THANK GOD! Was nervous it wouldnt be that much of a difference being over a core point, but it is. PHEW.
Here's the clear pane assembly. Fits together nicely. I have to sand the inside of the rings a bit. It's kinda snug. Plus the inside is kind of off a bit. Manufactures fault.
Look how flawless that is!
So perty.
Nice.
It's just so beautiful.
Anyways,... this thing is almost done. Don;t know when I'll be ableto work on this again. I am goign to try and work some OT, today seeing it's 12:37am right now. If they dont need me I will be working on her. So yea. I swear I saw sponge bob! But it couldnt have been him because he got his [email protected]# chewed up. Maybe I'mjust tired. I dont know. Peace.
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It's like 2am in this picture. This is the outside along with my truck facing towards the front of the Studio.
From the outside, you see the work area and the office/ storage through the door.
Work area. As you can see I'm not done getting this place settled.
This is the office/ storage.
The door separating the two rooms. this is good because I can close the door to keep particals out of the office/ storage.
Sponge Bob back from the dead, well he is dead, he's a zombie sponge. Then you have the [email protected]#$ shaped plankton.
DIE!
Here's the place setup up atleast for now. There's more work to be done but I cant do it now until I get my new equipment.
Here's our bay door. I have to get them to fix it though. The spring is suppose to be preloaded to hold the door open. The springs holds the door shut. PIS.
All my stuff just waiting to be stored away on shelves, as soon as I get them.
Front door from inside.
Work area from office/ storage.
Me.
Kill Sponge Bob. Again.
Hmmm,... maybe later.
So yea! Thats the studio. We going to purache alot more equipment but there's some stuff I haev to take care of first. Soon the updaing will begin. The modding evolution starts here,...
Last edited by tribaloverkill on Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.