[peteeng]

Hi Mom - Ebay have cement mixers for $234 free shipping. Kennards hire for $74AUD a day. Someone near you in Port will have a mixer.

CONCRETE MIXER - 0.06 CU.MTR (2CU.FT) BARROW for Rent - Kennards Hire

Bunnings are an expensive place to buy concrete. Talk to a local construction oriented builders supply. Or call Bluey and find out their local warehouse to you. I spoke to their chemist and turned up at the Brisbane depot and they gave me a bag of HE80 (they had a large mountain of the stuff) but you probably want HE80AG if you use HE80 add aggregate yourself.

Bluey Technologies; Concrete Protection and Cement Repair Products; Construction Materials

I wanted a Sika grout and Bunnings wanted $110 to get it in, my local rural supplier got it for $80... so shop around cement should be dirt cheap... Buy the way Sika have recently bought out Bluey and Lanko but the packaging and distribution remain the same. Peter

Bluey also sell epoxy but in big quantities if your interested in EG. I also recommend you use something like bondcrete on your steel surfaces , you get a better bond.

[Momentz]

Hi Mom - Ebay have cement mixers for $234 free shipping. Kennards hire for $74AUD a day. Someone near you in Port will have a mixer.

CONCRETE MIXER - 0.06 CU.MTR (2CU.FT) BARROW for Rent - Kennards Hire

Bunnings are an expensive place to buy concrete. Talk to a local construction oriented builders supply. Or call Bluey and find out their local warehouse to you. I spoke to their chemist and turned up at the Brisbane depot and they gave me a bag of HE80 (they had a large mountain of the stuff) but you probably want HE80AG if you use HE80 add aggregate yourself.

Bluey Technologies; Concrete Protection and Cement Repair Products; Construction Materials

I wanted a Sika grout and Bunnings wanted $110 to get it in, my local rural supplier got it for $80... so shop around cement should be dirt cheap... Buy the way Sika have recently bought out Bluey and Lanko but the packaging and distribution remain the same. Peter

Bluey also sell epoxy but in big quantities if your interested in EG.

I'm in Albury. Bunnings seemed the cheapest for lanko 701.

Don't need a cement mixer, got a friend with one.

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[Momentz]

Also, lanko are literally half the price of blucem and sika alternatives

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[peteeng]

Hi - Seems your right to go . Lanko is good value I think. I have a bag to do some tests with. My grout testing has slowed down while I build Lanky. Hope to cast a saddle for Lanky in grout. Peter

[Momentz]

Looked through the 1800+ post here but could only see some renderings and a few test bricks? Nothing on a larger scale? Seems like you haven't settled on a design for your own build yet?

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[peteeng]

Hi Mom - I started out thinking I would be able to make a cold casting material around the stiffness of aluminium. There is a company in Germany that does this in grout but they won't sell outside of the EU. The other aim was a material that could be machined easily so the finishing could be done on a mill or a router. This all fits inside the aim of a production machine ( not a hobby, one off style machine) hence the interest in casting vs billet machining parts. My background is in high performance composites and bespoke machine design (yacht and car racing stuff) and I knew I could do this in carbon fibre easily but CF is too many dollars for a maker level router. Plus I set a high stiffness requirement for the machine. These rabbit holes multiplied the difficulty, plus I was building a workshop (covid - should have been 8 months took 2 years) plus we had a flood which knocked us over for 6 months. So some projects are a battle! But now the Milli work has established what can and can't be done, material suppliers etc. Rome wasn't built in a day as they say. My biggest conclusion out of Milli is that aluminium timber laminates are stiff, economical and damp. Epoxy granite is expensive and not stiff enough. Grout is good for some parts with complex geometry and I'm now working on understanding diamond tooling so I can machine concrete. Aluminium/plywood is great to work with but marketing plywood is a bit tough. So I have looked at 400kg/m3 urethane foam as a "core" but suppliers only sell in 200 litre drums etc etc... The Holy Grail is out there, I think. I'm always optimistic on Mondays. ... Peter

re: larger scale - I do work on large & very large mining machines commercially that does not show up here. So I have a good grip on scaling things up when needed. Small things are more difficult to do then large things sometimes. For instance a big machine is naturally stiffer due to big geometry. Try making a benchtop machine the same stiffness as a commercial VMC and you'll soon see the futility of the task, but again its Monday and all things are possible.

Looking at Millis timeframe I have built two 1/3 sheet machines . One in aluminium laminates, one in steel (both sold now) and I have rebuilt two small machines testing electronics and a laser, so I've been busy, plus the material research work. I could make more but then my workshop will fill up with machines. So I can't build one until one sells, sometimes that takes time too so now I'm onto Lanky my biggest machine to date.

[Momentz]

Hi Mom - I started out thinking I would be able to make a material around the stiffness of aluminium. There is a company in Germany that does this in grout but they won't sell outside of the EU. The other aim was a material that could be machined easily so the finishing could be done on a mill or a router. This all fits inside the aim of a production machine ( not a hobby one of) hence the interest in casting vs billet machining parts. My background is in high performance composites (yacht and car racing stuff) and I knew I could do this in carbon fibre easily but CF is too many dollars for a maker level router.

Awesome, can't wait to see your build start.

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[peteeng]

Hi All - While epoxy granite has popped up again Bluey sell an epoxy grout with a very good data sheet. Its a liquid epoxy plus sand as a filler. Its modulus is E=15GPa which agrees with some of my tests. It adds sand to the epoxy at a weight ratio of 1:1 and I expect you could add more sand. They also specify the expansion co-efficient which is 34um /m/deg which is similar to aluminium at 27 and steel at 13um. So using aluminium would be better at hard points in this case. Id use cement grout vs EG due to the increased modulus and less $$$. Peter

[peteeng]

Morning all - Here's an interesting machine. It has come up on the forum before but the site now quotes its stiffness and has real video vs animations. I'm unclear how a machine of 10N/um can cut steel like this... I can see that a large envelope high velocity machine has a place but maybe too complex? Pick and Place gone to the dark side...Plus no swarf management, Hmmmm Peter

https://youtu.be/YPc66pJoQuM?list=TL...D-AyNTA5MjAyMw

[ihavenofish]

Awesome, can't wait to see your build start.

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Will be another 1800 posts. :P

[peteeng]

Hi IHNF - Round that out to 2000 its a better number. Peter

[peteeng]

Evening everyone - I have been doing more lapping today and have some observations. My dial guage says the surface is averaging 0.01mm and I want to get to 0.001mm. I've decided I can't get there using wet and dry paper. This is because if there is a high under the paper it does not get flattened. So I have to use grit so that the two surfaces are lapped at the same time. So highs from both surfaces are removed. If there is a high under the paper it potentially creates a low in the partner so this is poor. So I have to order some grit. I received some P16 but its too coarse now so I'll get a graded batch to figure out which one to use. So in future I think it would be grit from the start. The local lapidary shop has graded SiC grits not expensive... If I wet the surfaces they spin on each other quite well so its coming along.... Peter

[Mr-MaW]

I'm also looking forward to your updates, but can't wait, last month we completed the design and production of 6 products, and at the same time renovated our showroom, which is a machining center. The machining center for mineral castings, look at my exhibition hall, these are the exhibits in my exhibition hall.

[Mr-MaW]

Looked through the 1800+ post here but could only see some renderings and a few test bricks? Nothing on a larger scale? Seems like you haven't settled on a design for your own build yet?

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Hope you see my comments every time. Then you don't have to say the number 1800.Just kidding, I hope you can seriously evaluate my product.

[Momentz]

Have you done testing with the lanko 701? About to do a big pour.

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[peteeng]

Hi Moment - No testing on Lanko701 yet. What data are you interested in? Peter

[Momentz]

Just some real world experience, kinda taking your word on using a class C grout lol, it does look like good stuff but still know little about it even though I've read all the spec sheets. Will be doing the big pour this week so after a last minute confirmation haha

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[peteeng]

Hi - I'll be coming thru Port in the next 3 weeks , I'll drop in and have a look!! Peter send me a PM if you want...

[Momentz]

Hi - I'll be coming thru Port in the next 3 weeks , I'll drop in and have a look!! Peter send me a PM if you want...

I don't live in port. In Albury now.

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[peteeng]

Now I remember - Albury is a bit far from my southern turning point... Good luck with the pour - It will be fine- Peter