Member postings for lee webster

I watched a video on youtube this morning posted by Uncle Jessie. He was experimenting with car paint stopper or glazing compound. It is available in small tins or tubes and it is spread very thinly onto the surface, in his case, a3D print. But he also used a small cheap airbrush to spray a coat of this filler that was thinned with acetone. It seemed to work OK but all the chemicals meant that a very good resperator was called for. Myfordboy uses premixed household filler, I am not sure if he also uses the stuff you mix with water. Some casters on youtube melt aluminium and copper to produce a brass lookalike, but it seems very hard to machine.

That is a good piece of work! Will you cast the part in brass?

In the past when I have sanded and filled my 3D prints I then sprayed them with rattle can car paint. They always seemed to have the layer lines showing to some extent. I recently cast an aluminium picture frame from a 3D print that had been sanded and filled, but not painted. The finish was much better. I think the car paint had reacted with the PLA print, "swelling" the layer lines a little. I wonder if a water based spray paint would also affect PLA? Myfordboy brushes his 3D prints with ordinary emulsion paint. It seems to work OK.

Nigel, One thing that seems to have not been mentioned is that 3D design can be fun! I often design parts without having any use for them, especially flywheels with spokes. Ooo, I do love a spoked flywheel. I have even designed said flywheel, 3D printed it ( in two halves with location points so it goes back together again) and then cast it in aluminium. I didn't need the cast flywheels, so I cut them up to use on another project.

You could be right about TC. There are probably many who sing its praises. I am not one of them!

Out of all the "free" CAD programmes I would recommend Solid Edge to a begginer closely followed by Designspark Mechanical, then FreeCAD. Fusion 360 has too many drawbacks to make it worthwhile, and it might get worse. Are there any other free CAD packages?

I think there might be a flaw in your attempts to draw in 3D. I recently commented on a youtube video where an A7 enthusiast is building an A7 replica racing car. I asked what CAD package he was using, it looked so bad at 3D I couldn't believe it was meant to do 3D. It was Turbocad. He slaged it off with a very choice swear word and finished by saying he was too old to try anything else. I was 65 when I started to use FreeCAD, and like A7 man, I found TC to be the biggest load of wossname I ever tried. Sling it over the nearest hedge and set yourself the task of learning Solid Edge or FreeCAD or MOI or use a crayon and draw on a piece of slate. just don't try to use TC.

Turbocad is the present you give to someone you hate.

I designed a small engine in FreeCAD and then wanted to see if I had left enough room in the crankcase for the conrod to rotate freely. I drew a sketch of the piston and conrod, created a circle where the middle of the crankshaft would be to represent the crank throw, constrained the center of the big end to that circle, constrained the little end to the piston and constrained the piston to only vertical movement. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I expected to have to move each part to a new position several times to see if the conrod would foul.

I tried to embed the video here, but couldn't get Youtube to allow me to alter the width to suit. Just copy the address below and paste it into Youtube. I hope it works.

https://youtu.be/sbHIeUcM5sY

Edited By lee webster on 08/05/2022 19:43:20

Edited By JasonB on 08/05/2022 20:04:53

Hi Nigel,

When I started with 3D cad 3-ish years ago it took me months to get something worth the effort. I was using FreeCAD then and managed to produce this model of an Austin 7 engine block.

The next image is a "cut away" view of the block internals, internals I might add that play no part in the casting process. My mistake to include them in the design. I am learning!

And then I 3D printed it using an Ender 3.

The 3D prints will be used as patterns to cast the parts in aluminium, I can't cast iron with my set up. If you have no strong need for 3D, don't bother with it. Stick to 2D if it suits your needs. There is no way I could have produced these models without 3D cad.

Lee

Oh come on! How do you get ANY work done with a view like that?

I would like to use Solid edge more, but the computer it is installed on isn't connected to the internet. So watching a helpful video or reading a help file has to be done on my more elderly computer that is connected. The elderly computer also has Solid edge installed. Elderly computer will run SE, but very slow to start the programme. I installed trial versions of 2D cad software during the week, I wanted to produce a drawing of a crankshaft, conrod and piston to determine if I had left enough room inside a little engine I was drawing (in FreeCAD). None of the 2D's would do what I wanted, and I didn't have the time/patience to delve deeper. I went back to FreeCAD and managed to use the programme as a simplified 2D animation viewer.

I find it easier to visualise a part in 3D, plus, once I am satisfied with my design I can 3D print it and cast the part. If you have the time and inclination, try Designspark Mechanical. It's free and there are plenty of tutorial videos. When I tried designing the same part in DS and SE, DS won. I tried designing the part in FreeCAD but couldn't.

I would still like to use a 2D cad programme, but which one?

I think there is a way of telling Solid edge to show which geometry is under constrained, but I never got it to work properly. One thing that really put me off using it is the "tree" with the list of everything you've done. In FreeCAD and Design Spark this tree shows the steps for each body, and the steps can be collapsed to just the name of the body. Solid edge seems to want to show everything all the time. Am I missing something?

An elderly friend was often bothered by this type of call until I advised her to stop her regular donations to various charities. Some charities sell your information to third parties, it's a good source of income for them. By stopping all her bank payments to these people they could no longer sell her information as someone who had spare money to hand out. The phone calls petered out and eventually stopped. It upset her to think that a charity would do this.

Chep on youtube has recently posted a video about this problem. I will try posting a link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_llLYxbJ4A

It's well worth a watch.

Was it Spike Milligan or the Goons who sang a song about "Spotty Muldoon"? I don't know what made me think of that.....

I believe that Artisan foundry supplies in Liverpool stock this material. When I get round to building a larger foundry, they will be my first port of call. Very helpful people.

PS. I will build mine with high temp bricks.

Lee

Whilst FreeCAD is more than capable of producing these parts, I wouldn't want to use it in case (in case?) it crashed. FreeCAD can annoy and amaze in equal measures (leaning to annoy just a tad).

Another free 3D cad programme to try is Designspark mechanical. It won't produce detailed drawings but it will save a view of what you're drawing as a JPG with dimensions. I have produced some 3D prints to use in sand casting and it works fine. I find it a lot easier to use than Solid edge which I also have installed. I do play with FreeCAD now and then, but.......

Phil H1,

Whilst chatting to a friends gardener I noticed a LED on her jacket. I asked what it was and she told me her jacket had a heating element built in, battery powered I might add.

Why not search garden stores and maybe camping stores too.

Lee

Thanks to all who replied. I have been out of the vintage car scene for some years now. I di try advertising the cars in a few places a year or so ago, but the pandemic and lockdowns didn't help. I will try the recomendationsThanks again, Lee

I have three Austin Sevens that I now want to sell. I am not a dealer! Just a lucky enthusiast. Can anyone recommend a place to sell them? I live in Cornwall.

OldMettaler.

A friend and I used to do the Guardian cryptic prize crossword. We won it three times, once in her name, once in mine and just for a laugh we entered in the name of my friends cat Lizzie. She won!