Rusted beauty

The recent plasma cut gates have been given an initial sports of mild acid and set outside to start their patina. Once they are in place we’ll further chemically add different value colours (subtle shades of brown) to the different layers to further differentiate them from each other. In only a couple of days outside the rust colour evened out on the metal and it now looks vastly different than when we pulled them from the shop.

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Imagine the possibilities

When we installed our MultiCam CNC plasma cutter last week we weren’t sure exactly what we would do with it. We just knew the things that are now possible in our shop will be very cool and unlimited in scope. It was the same with the MultiCam CNC router ten years ago. Today Peter designed the brackets for the gutters they will install on their house. The image was drawn by hand and then imported into EnRoute for vector tracing which only took a second. The back piece of the bracket was designed using the drawing tools. The first prototype was cut on the plasma cutter this morning. Cutting it from a sheet of 3/16″ thick steel took less than a minute and welding it together only a minute more. The result is charming and will add a stunning detail to the house!

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Dino comes to life

The dinosaur bones were slipped over a bent steel pipe to form the backbone of the velociraptor. I spaced then out and took a look to see how it would work.

It needed a little tweaking and twisting to get things looking right. To give the skeleton more life I cut both ends of the pipe and added more bend before welding them back on at a slightly different angle. This brought the head and tail around in a more striking curve. I then tack welded things into place. I now have to do the final welds before we lift him onto a fallen tree which we will sculpt beneath him.

The mail box will be welded into his double handed grip. To get to this stage took less than an hour.

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Pile of bones!

Once we got the new MultiCam plasma cutter set up and tested it was time to give it a spin. Russell asked me for a file and I was happy to oblige. It was time for Phoebe’s mailbox to be cut at last! It was pure magic to watch it run through the file! It ran flawlessly – right out of the box!

We had quite the pile of pieces when the machine was done.

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Digging up some old bones

Yesterday, Russel Boudria, the head trainer from MultiCam in Texas arrived to set up our shiny new CNC plasma cutter and train us how to use it. He was eager to get started even though he had spent most of the day in transit. That’s dedication! We worked a couple of hours levelling the table, sorting out wires, hoses and cables, and testing things out. We got to the point where we could move the gantry and test fire the machine. Tomorrow we’ll begin some serious cutting. As I thought about what the first cut pieces might be I knew we would want to set a fairly high bar as the starting point. From here we will get even more creative. I knew just the test piece. Phoebe mentioned that she needs a mailbox for their new house. Ordinary just wouldn”t do. She also happens to love dinosaurs. So I thought a life-size velociraptor skeleton holding a custom built mailbox might be about right. Phoebe agreed. I designed the cutting file after Russel left. This is going to be FUN!

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.