I’ve been busy with perfecting the guide rail (still)
time sure has flown bye quickly, progress perfecting it has been slow, I want to be getting the guide rail right before I make a start on the notching on the dung boards, I don’t want to find big issues down the line
as mentioned previously, I wasn’t happy with the guide rail made by my local engineering firm, the guide rail was close but just not close enough for this project
so I’ve been trying to buy some aluminium to make a new guide rail, as I can’t find an “L” shape angle with wide enough sides (one side 98mm the other 138mm) I’ve been looking to make one out of an “L“ shape angle with one side being 98mm and a a straight sheet so when put together I can make an “L” shape with wide enough sides to use as my guide rail,
due to this coronavirus my local aluminium supplier was reluctant to let me (and others) in their warehouse to pick up offcuts
I managed to get some aluminium from a local double glazing firm, I was looking for 3mm or thicker sheets and an “L” shape angle, all they had as offcuts were 2mm thick, nothing thicker available as off cuts so took this
once I got home and put these together I discovered it wasn’t beefy enough for my use as a guide rail, so this delayed me considerably till my local aluminium supplier allowed people in to their warehouse again
a week last Monday, (24th August) my aluminium supplier had eased their restrictions and allowed people in to the warehouse again,
I was able to pick out a sheet of 3mm thick aluminium and the guy in the warehouse was good enough to cut the sheet to the right size I wanted, 900mm x 165mm
as for the “L” bracket, there was one at 101.6mm wide (4” imperial) x 1.5M (approx) long and 3.17mm thick (1/8” imperial) as I will be making use of this extra length of aluminium, I didn’t have this cut to size and took it as was
I’ve mentioned it before, as the dung boards need different depth cuts for the bottom and the top notching, this being to compensate the 10mm lip on the top of the dung boards, for this I have allowed 56mm for the top and for the bottom 46mm,
I will be changing the saw blade depth twice on every batch of notches, I am sure I’m not going to be able to be to within a hairs thickness correct every time, so without a template I’me going to be getting different depths on every batch of cuts. I’ve worked out the notches only need to be 45mm deep (excluding the lip)
this extra 1mm (I hope) should be enough extra gap for the timber to sit in the notch comfortably,
so to get consistency I was planing on making a template, I first did a test with timber blocks and while this wasn’t accurate it was consistent
so while at the aluminium supplier I was looking for a block of aluminium that would be large enough to cut a slot with a depth in it of 46mm and 56mm and wide enough to allow the saw blade to slide in, the blade has a kerf of 2.5mm so around 3 to 4mm wide would be fine
to end up with a template looking something like this
I managed to find just what I was looking for, a block of aluminium 3” x 3” square and around 300mm long, I took all the aluminium pieces I collected to the office to get a price and pay for them,
to my amazement the cost of the 3”x3” block of aluminium, they wanted £50, so I went back in the warehouse to pick smaller block, 3” x2.5” and 200mm long @£20
once I had all the measurements I phoned the double glazing firm to see when they could fit me in to cutting my aluminium to size, they gave me a 4 weeks waiting time as they were flat out, but recommended a firm that works in aluminium and might be able to fit me in sooner
so what I needed cutting was 3 cuts, one was cutting the “L” fracked to 900mm long and leaving the width at the 101.6mm and two cuts in the aluminium block, like shown here
so with these two pieces of aluminium I found my way to this firm I was recommended, told the guy/owner I had the aluminium and what my requirements were, he said he’s busy so wasn’t sure when he’d have it finished, maybe in two plus weeks
I asked for an idea on price and his replied was “how long is a pice of string” which I was taken back by, surly he knows his work and a ruff guide how long it would take him, I said he must have some idea, the reply was “I know it’ll be less then £100” I said “what, it’s only three cuts” he explained he charges £30 per hour and won’’t know how long it’ll take him to set up the cuts (I did think, just how long dose this take, one hour per cut?)
looking back I regrettably I said OK, and would give him a call at the end of the second week
by the end of last week I was thinking that I have my own jig saw to be able to cut the “L” angle as I planned on keeping the width to 101.6 and not the 98mm as planed, as for the cuts on the aluminium block, I could pick up a cheap bandsaw to make the cuts in the block and still not cost much more than I was being charged by this guy and have a bandsaw thrown in
I spent the weekend looking for a DIY bandsaw, Lidl and Aldi bandsaw’s were the cheapest (new) but were not on offer right now, so doing some research for my use I thought the Silverline bandsaw would fit my needs for the price,
so Monday being bank holiday I’d made up my mind, on Tuesday I’d pop in to see if my work had been done, if not (fingers cross) I’d pick up the parts and do it myself, sure enough nothing had been touched which I was please to say the least. I told the guy/owner there was a change of plan and could I have the parts back
I got home and placed an order with Amazon for the Silverline bandsaw, yesterday and it arrived today, it comes with a 6TPI - 6mm wide, so yesterday I also ordered a bandsaw blade with 14TPI and 12mm wide, which should be OK to cut aluminium
one of the down side to these cheap bandsaw’s is they have a fixed belt speed, no facility to reduce the belt speed, as the speed for cutting wood is too fast for cutting aluminium, I’ll take my time and see how it works out
some images of the Silverline bandsaw, the belt will need fine adjusting but straight out of the box I am pleased and for the price I think it’s a solid looking bandsaw
I know the blade hasn’t had any use so should be sharp, but I’m still impressed how thin it can cut timber
a UK penny for comparison of the cut
one thing I was surprised to see it have is the brush on the bottom wheel to remove the sawdust off the drive wheel
the bandsaw can cut up to 80mm high so the aluminium block will fit
yesterday being a bright and sunny day I got on with making my guide rail for the notching out of the “L” angle, around 4 minutes after getting out my jigsaw I had cut the “L” angle to 900mm
my plan was to bolt the 900mm sheet to my “L” angle bracket and form a guide rail for the notches, by using the bolts I can fine tune the measurements for the guide rail, unlike the one I had made for me that was a fixed measurements
on the 900mm sheet I cut out 4 “U” cuts out of it so once I fitted the bolts I could slide the sheet up and down to fine the the measurements
till I had finalised on the measurements I used ordinary nuts to hold together the two parts
once I was happy with the settings, one by one I replaced the nuts for self locking nuts
all bolted together
maybe for watch makers, one millimetre is like a metre to the rest of us but I never thought just how difficult it would be to set the right distance by hand to the nearest 0.5 of a millimetre, once photographed for checking accuracy, some looked like 1/3 of a millimetre and others like 2/3 out, I spent ages trying getting it right
the other thing I bought was a 80 teeth blade for the circular saw, I wasn’t happy even the 48 teeth blade I bought the other day as it was still leaving some split ends on the timber. but now I’m getting a much smoother finish on the test timber
I’ll add some more when the 14TPI bandsaw belt arrives sometime this weekend
