[outsider787]

Having moved to a new house, and having had enough of cleaning chips from every corner of my workshop (at the old workshop), I decided to build an enclosure for my BF20L Vario clone before setting it up again.

From what I could find on the webs, there was little (to none) in the way of detailed enclosure designs (with plans and/or dimensions), so I will be posting my detailed plans (with drawings) for my enclosure.

Some general specs:
- The size of the chip tray is 30" deep by 60" wide.
- The height of the enclosure is 32" tall (I hope that's tall enough)
- The enclosure walls attach to the outside frame of the chip tray.
- Not Planning to put a ceiling on it at first, unless chips start flying out. Then I'll reconsider.

I wanted to design/build a semi-modular enclosure where I could upgrade/modify the enclosure part interdependently from the tray. I should be able to remove any of the sides without taking down the entire enclosure.

Last night I bought some wood and built the chip/flood tray.

The outside frame is 1"x4" pine, and the bottom of the pan is 1/2" plywood.
I nailed and glued all the wood together (Used PL Premium as the adhesive)
Sealing the wood with an epoxy resin should happen soon.

More to come as I build it.

adrian.

[outsider787]

reserved for technical drawings and other details.

[Mystichrome]

Had you seen the Tormach DIY enclosure plans? They can be found here:
http://www.tormach.com/uploads/426/T...wings-zip.html

I based my enclosure on a modified version of those plans. Something you may want to think about is adding a slope to the front and back of the pan. Or at least one of the two based on where you're putting your drain. I put my drain at the front to make it easy to access it for clearing chips/debris and I'm already noticing drainage problems. I had to add a very slight tilt to the stand to force the water to run forward to toward the drain, however I get standing water just in front of the drain as the water continues to run forward. It's not a huge problem(yet at least), but I could see it becoming a larger issue. Part of the problem is a temporary setup I have with my drain as well as the risers I have my mill sitting on(risers run nearly full depth of the enclosure), but this would all be less of a problem if I had the pan sloped in all directions. There's plenty of people with pan's built like yours(mine is), so it can certainly work, just throwing out my experience as food for thought.

-Kevin

[outsider787]

Thanks for the advice Kevin.
Adding another angled surface does complicate the design, but it's probably for the best.

Ideally the entire "flat/pan bottom" surface would somehow be angled (in all directions) towards the drain point, while keeping the mill mounting points level (so the mill remains level).

This enclosure design uses 4 hockey pucks to raise the mill above the bottom of the pan.

Maybe a similar idea may work here.
Attach (glue) the hockey pucks to the table, and add bondo (or some other filler) around the pucks to raise and shape the bottom surface of the pan to drain to one point.
Then slap down a couple pf layers of fiber glass (to protect the bondo or filler).

adrian.

[Mystichrome]

I only brought it up because it's easier to make changes to the design now before you get too far. I could go back and fix mine, but that means disassembling the machine (yet again) to pull it out and then ripping up the FRP panel I used to line the tray. Then I have to add wood or other material to shape things, then lay down FRP again (oh how I hate that stuff) and seal the seams. Needless to say, I'm not real motivated to do all that. I built my stand to come apart in sections(base, tray, enclosure walls/ceiling), so I could down the road build a whole new tray for it, but considering the current tray hasn't seen much use yet, I'm not motivated to make a new one. I'm sure I'll realize more things I want to change. Another change I would make is how I ran my cables and coolant line into the enclosure. I went though the tray bottom for simplicity and shorter cables/lines. I also thought it may look cleaner. However I'm not all that happy with the appearance and it required a lot of sealing which I'm still fighting. If I had it to over again, I would bring all the lines in through the rear sidewall of the tray. That way sealing the hole off wouldn't be as critical. Where I have them now, standing water accumulates. They have to be sealed perfect. Has been quite frustrating chasing down leaks at these locations. Every time I think I have them sealed, I find another leak.

-Kevin

[outsider787]

Kevin,

I've taken your advice on sloping the flat portion towards the drain point. What I've done is placed 4 hockey pucks (strategically so the mill base mounting holes line with the center of the pucks) on the flat tray bottom and glued them to the tray.

This was done to raise the mill off the sloping tray. The mill will stay flat to the underside of the tray while the inside of the tray can be sloped as I wish.

I've bought some epoxy resin, mixed it up and pouted it in the chip tray, then tilted up the front of the tray slightly. I'm using the epoxy as a leveling compound, and with the tray tilted slightly (with the drain point higher) once the epoxy dries it will give me a nice slope towards my grain point.
Gotta wait for the resin to dry now.

Will post pictures soon.

[outsider787]

Some explanation:

Added 4 hockey pucks (onto which the mill will sit), cut out a drain hole and poured some polyester resin like I mentioned in the previous post.
First layer I poured had a whole bunch of microballoons mixed in. I thought I could get a lot more volume out of it, but it really didn't make that much of a difference. The problem is that when the mixture gets to 1part (by volume) microballoons to 2-3 parts resin, things thicken up.
The second pour of resin was mixed with acetone (and no mocroballoons) and I made it quite runny, so it would self level.
And it did the trick. It self leveled quite nicely. I angled the tray (shimmed one corner) so the was just a little resin leaking through the drain.

While I had the thinned out resin, I took the liberty to "paint" the rest of the wood with it. You're supposed to water down polyester resins when putting it on porous surfaces (like wood).
So now the whole area is sealed.

As for how much to angle the tray (how much slope) I've give it about 1/4" per foot. That is the recommended drain slope for setting concrete outdoors (if you want water to drain properly off the concrete) so I figured it's a good measurement to follow.

Since my drain is 25" from the back the tray, I measured 1/2" on the back of the tray, and poured till I got there.

[Mad Welder]

May I make a suggestion or rather point out what may be a probable pitfall here...and .I'm guessing here also that you'll be drilling the hockey pucks for the base mounting bolts.....I'm using 2"square solid bar to sit my BF20L's base on and evenwith the base sited two full inches off the tray I still have difficulties in cleaning/scraping the build up of swarf beneath the mill base.....

[Mystichrome]

May I make a suggestion or rather point out what may be a probable pitfall here...and .I'm guessing here also that you'll be drilling the hockey pucks for the base mounting bolts.....I'm using 2"square solid bar to sit my BF20L's base on and evenwith the base sited two full inches off the tray I still have difficulties in cleaning/scraping the build up of swarf beneath the mill base.....

I second this actually. I just moved up to 3" square tube from 2" square tube as the risers for more my mill. 2" made it basically impossible to get under the mill and clean swarf. 3" makes it possible, but still quite difficult. I'd aim for as much space as is reasonably possible under the mill.

[outsider787]

Interesting consideration.

What I can easily do (and will do) is grow the stack of hockey pucks to 3 high (which will give me 3" clearance) and get some long bolts (or threaded rod) to bolt the machine down to the pedestal (which will be under the tray).

Thanks for the pointers guys.

Do you guys (Mystichrome and Mad Welder) have any photos of what the interface between the tray and the base of the mill looks like?
I'd be interested to see (for reference) what you had done (pictures are worth a thousand words)

[Mystichrome]

Not sure if these were the type of photos you were looking for or not, but these show what the base of my mill is mounted to in order to get it off the enclosure floor. Sorry for the bad pics, had to use my iphone as my DSLR's batteries are dead. I used 3" aluminum square tube with 1/4" walls with the ends sealed up. I should have used steel tube, but then I would have had to had the tubes powder coated or something to protect them from rusting from coolant. From a rigidity stand point steel would be much better. Though considering the rest of my stand is made of wood, I'm not sure how much difference steel tube would have made. Some day I'll build a nice stand/enclosure from steel, but for now this will have to do.

[outsider787]

Thanks for the photos Mystichrome. They were what I was looking for.
As I suspected, the tubing you're using runs along the length of the mill, making removal of chips/swarf accessible only from the front.
Am I right? If that's true, I can understand your challenge.

Part of the idea behind the hockey pucks (besides vibration isolation) is that there's lots of access to the underside from all around the base (as the base of the mill will only be sitting on 4 pucks, each being 3" diam)

[Menacer]

That is real Fing cool dude! Wish I saw your picks and borrowed your sloped base before I built mine!

Can I use that on my next one?

[outsider787]

What does your current tray look like? Maybe you can modify it.

[Mystichrome]

Thanks for the photos Mystichrome. They were what I was looking for.
As I suspected, the tubing you're using runs along the length of the mill, making removal of chips/swarf accessible only from the front.
Am I right? If that's true, I can understand your challenge.

Part of the idea behind the hockey pucks (besides vibration isolation) is that there's lots of access to the underside from all around the base (as the base of the mill will only be sitting on 4 pucks, each being 3" diam)

You're exactly right, it's only accessible from the front. However, if you have something protecting the ways from swarf, then generally, swarf doesn't make it down through the base and the only place it can get in is directly behind the mill, which so far hasn't been much of a problem. Coolant will be another story, I'm sure. The bigger problem I have right now is the tramp oil that leaks down in to that area. I originally had made a slope under the mill to push things toward the drain, however my caulk lines leaked and I had to rip it out. This wasn't part of the original design and was instead an after thought to create better drainage. Thus it was built on top of the FRP lining and I believe that was part of the problem with the caulk seal. The reason I went with full length risers is that since my pan doesn't slop forward, I was worried coolant would drain down the sloped sides and sit under the mill instead of draining. That won't be a problem for you now that you sloped forward as well.

-Kevin

[outsider787]

So now that I've got the wood coated in two coats of polyester resin (and gave it a good sanding), it's time to paint the thing.

Any recommendation on what type of paint to use? Should I paint it with oil paint or will latex paint be sufficient?

What color is recommended for the inside of the tray? Black? White? Grey? Some other color?
I'm tempted to think color is a personal preference, but thought I'd ask anyway in case some color hides a dirty/messy chip tray more then others (or other reasons).

The outside I will likely paint a light grey.

[Mystichrome]

Having a light colored tray helps with raising the ambient lighting if using lights. Dark colors will tend to absorb the light, light colors will reflect. Or at least that's how we perceive it. Light colors do get ugly quick though. It all depends on the type of paint used I guess too. Some paints are gonna be more durable than others. I'll leave that to someone else to chime in on as painting is far from my strong suit.

[ninefinger]

So now that I've got the wood coated in two coats of polyester resin (and gave it a good sanding), it's time to paint the thing.

Any recommendation on what type of paint to use? Should I paint it with oil paint or will latex paint be sufficient?

You will likely need to prep the surface very well as many polyester resins contain wax that rises to the surface during curing. Also - I don't think latex will stick to it in a durable manner. I think Hoss used a marine paint - probably a good idea as it is likely designed to work with polyester resins (fiberglass).

I used a garage floor paint and it was fine with soluble oil cutting fluids (coolant). As soon as I used a synthetic fluid it cracked and crazed and now looks like crap...live and learn. I think in the way distant future I'll line the tray with sheets of stainless steel...won't need to be thick as the wood will provide the support but will be easier to clean / sweep than a painted surface.

Mike

[outsider787]

Just put down the last layer of polyester resin.

So what I ended up doing (after listening to Mike's advice) is went and bought some pigment to add to the polyester resin instead of using an oil paint. It's going to be more durable then any paint I can put on there.

The 5oz jar of pigment I picked up was more then enough for this size tray. I only used about half of it. The 5oz jar was about $5 at a local fiberglass supply store.
This way I get the color I want and the resistance to most chemicals that may end up in the tray.

[outsider787]

So a few notes:

LEVELING:
Using the resin to create an incline on the bottom tray worked great. What I would do differently is the process. Forget about microbaloons, or other fillers. They only thicken up the mix and increase the viscosity of the resin.

- Measure out on the back wall the height to which you want the resin to reach (how much of a slope you want). I'd recommend about 1/4" of height for each 12" away from the drain point. My drain was 26" from the back wall, so I built up 1/2" of resin at the back wall sloping down to the drain.
- Raise the front of the tray by about the same height you marked on the back of the tray.
- To achieve great leveling on the first try, mix into the resin some acetone. Something in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 parts resin and 1 part acetone. Do it by eye until the resin feels more viscous then it was without the acetone.
- Pour it on and adjust how much you raise the front of the tray to make sure no resin drains through your drain hole.
- Repeat as needed to build up the height required.

GENERAL:
- Polyester resin at it's base viscosity does not stick well to porous material like wood. It is recommended to thin out the resin with acetone so it penetrates the wood pores, and get a good hold.
- When leveling with thinned out resin (for high viscosity and good self leveling ability) use a paint brush to paint the rest of the surface of the wood as an initial resin layer.
- Once leveling is achieved mix a batch of resin with some pigment in it, and paint it over the entire surface. The pigment I used gave the tray a dull grey color.
- A last layer of resin on top (of the pigment layer) will give the tray a glass like finish.
- I used waxed resin. This resin leaves a shiny finish which needs to be sanded if more resin is to be added on top later. The sanding adds extra time and work between coats)
- I would buy un-waxed resin for the bulk of the work, and only a small amount of waxed resin as a top coat.
- Each batch I mixed was 2 cups worth at a time.
- 2 cups of mixed up resin was enough for a painted coat all over the 30"x60" tray. This included painting the vertical front and rear side walls, as well as painting all around the outside (just not on the bottom).
- I ended up using 1 gallon of resin in total, but I made a few mistakes along the way and lots of resin was wasted. If I did it again I think I should be able to do it using just 1/2 a gallon.
- Don't do this in your basement. The resin puts out nasty odors.
- If temperature in the garage is not the recommended 20deg C (or 68deg F) for the resin curing, put in more hardener. Temperatures were just above freezing in my garage when I did this and I found that 2 to 4 times the amount of hardener was needed to get the resin to cure at lower temperatures. More hardener just makes the resin cure faster.