FINISHED pinkpanda's entry for 7th Annual BLF Old-Lumens Scratch-build contest!

Looks good pp. Your skills are coming along in leaps and bounds. I’d say theres heaps of room for wiring. :slight_smile:

Nice build so far! I’m glad my post brought some kinda response, but I didn’t expect a rogue build! :smiling_imp:

Honest, officer! I was only trying to get the real contest to start! :innocent:

Thanks moose :beer:

It wasn’t me officer :cowboy_hat_face: , David is the mastermind… :zipper_mouth_face: err… no I mean ‘the’ … I’m a pleb :blush: Honest…

Im wondering Pinkpanda what is the superconductor bar made out of?

According to the seller this is NIOBIUM TITANIUM ALLOY. I’m assuming the orange part is copper and not cupronickel.

Wiki says there is a couple different varieties - Superconductor material classes include chemical elements (e.g. mercury or lead), alloys (such as niobium-titanium, germanium-niobium, and niobium nitride), ceramics (YBCO and magnesium diboride), superconducting pnictides (like fluorine-doped LaOFeAs) or organic superconductors (fullerenes and carbon nanotubes; though perhaps these examples should be included among the chemical elements, as they are composed entirely of carbon).

Thanks- i think it will look great and unique when turned down exposing the different alloys.

That’s the plan. I am far from the first person to do this but this material is not nearly as popular as steel damascus, mokume or timascus.

The steel sounds and looks really really expensive. :money_mouth_face:

looking good pp ,how much is that metal worth?,I cried with the $150 I paid for the metal for my light bar.

I feel terrible now :cry: :cry: I paid more than you for that little piece. I really don’t want to screw this up.

On the bright side, it looks sweet after machining

pp cant say what hi material cost ltp as his better half would kill him. :stuck_out_tongue:

Whilst that is true, I also don’t like admitting it to myself :confounded:

I made some holes in the pill in order to use tweezers to screw it in/out. The holes line up with the mosled holes.

Purrday colours :heart_eyes:

Threaded and test fit

The retaining bezel protrudes a little more than I was planning due to the not being able to machine threads for the pill right the way up to the shelf/step. I should be able to easily rectify this by cutting off 1-2 threads off the pill

I’ve stalled for a bit trying to think about how to proceed from where I’m at with this build.

I bored out the body but didn’t go right through. I tried to stop around where the tail starts.

I then flipped it in the chuck and bored the tail to suit a rubber boot

Cut off the tail section

The inside of the body looks cool :sunglasses: Pity it won’t be seen, there will be a sleeve.

The sleeve, to help extend the length a little. Made from a solid bar of ti. The wall thickness is just under 0.5mm and may require a final pass to open the inside a fraction more once it’s fitted to the body.

Ready for threading

Nice work! I need a few more years on the lathe before i would try material like that.

Thanks grin. Your comment got me curious how long I’ve had a lathe, been just over 4 years since I bought the first lathe ( a sieg sc3 ).

I have had a hafco AL-320G for about 5 years i got it to make stainless parts for a brewery I was building. As usual it got out of control then i slowed up on the drink and went back to led grow lights herb garden at first. a “mate” dumped 20 dope plants on me after a blue with his missus and never came back for them. I took the strongest one and put it in the herb garden. That then got out of control with full digitially controlled grow rooms. I was just about to set it up so i could hit it with a frost just before harvest. The day before i planned on starting the build of an ammonia heat pump. The police pulled me up. i had all these leds and nothing to do with them. So i put a 100w into a 6 D cell maglite i had, thought i could make one of those and that put me on another slippery slope. Saving now for a new optimum lathe mill combo it would look good in my dining room with the welder.
Haha dont live on the edge jump off, my apologies for going of topic

The AL-320G is a nice machine. I currently have the next model down from that one. I also looked at the optima combo because I thought I could save on space but didn’t opt for it for a couple of reasons. The work table is limited compared to a regular mill, plus it’s not designed to do 4th axis work. Didn’t really seem worth it at the time. If I had the time and money I would consider getting one and doing severe modifications to make it a 4th axis capable machine. Probably beyond my abilities though :wink:

Main reason for a new lathe is an enclosed gearbox, also thinking about the combo so when i work out what i dont need i can buy a bigger table and mount the mill head on it. I already have indexing head, swivel/tilt vice and a heap of cutters. Haha I cant work out if im on the wagon or have fallen off it. As DB custom said it is good fun.

A decent table won’t be cheap :wink:

Sleeve is finished. I could probably have reduced the diameter of the threads a little but width is not the issue with this build.