Charles dP

Thanks @Alveprins. Not sure I’m entirely getting that. Could you perhaps, please share a photo of what you mean? Thanks

That looks great. Is that how you get the flats? What shape are you using?

The guy I bought my pillar drill from had 1 VFD and used industrial connectors between it and all the machines using it. Just make sure the VFD is completely discharged to zero V before messing with the connectors.

Hi Gerhard Good thoughts and insights. Just to play devil’s advocate: how does the idea of death at 49? Don’t mess with this stuff. Get it looked at. Good for you. Can’t wait to see the result.

Do you have a photo of the first etch? Are the spots in the same locations or different ones?

Hi Jaro It might not be exactly what you are looking for but maybe this will at least help. You could probably build your own version.

I have an image of that, which I got off this forum. Wish I could find the thread it came off of.

I’ve not taken that one but I took classes with Owen Bush and I can tell you that a course with someone who knows what they are doing will really flatten the learning curve. Good luck and enjoy.

Thanks Joshua. Very interesting.

Thanks Joshua. I’ll try that. I had thought I would need a perfect fit top and bottom die but I suppose not. Now let’s just hope I have the rights bits in my scrap pile. I can only get steel in 6m lengths here or whatever is in the offcut-bin at the supplier; and that is an hour away.

I’ll post some photos when it’s done

So the half wood dowel and groove worked though the pine is a bit soft for getting it perfect (i.e. sharp corners). The softness did allow me to use the fly press to just force the two together (after shaping the first half) without trying to thin the dowel any more. Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and advice. I made the groove by drilling end-on between two planks clamped together. There is still some divergence on the right (top in the photo) which I can sort when I’m putting things together. The rest of the gap on the photo is just the lighting. Next time I would tape one edge of the two copper pieces together to maintain better alignment.

I’m not sure from the picture what the circuit board is mounted on but I have wondered if using a heat-sink such as this one and passing it through a snug fitting, sealed hole in an enclosure would help to prevent overheating.

Thanks everyone. I got some wooden dowels yesterday and will see how it turns out today. Quenched the blade yesterday but the gun-gum started lifting away during normalisation and blew off entirely during the quench so no hamon for this one . Joshua, that is a great tip, thanks. I will definitely be putting that to use, if not this time then in the future.

Thanks @Alan Longmire, I’ll give it a go. @Joshua States, yes. Why do I now feel you are about to point out something simple that I’ve completely overlooked?