How Would You makes this?

This took a little thought and a lot of patience - and several tries!

How would YOU make it?

Neil

Looks like its been punched out so would have to make a rectangular punch and space out a row of holes, step over for the next row and then back for the next etc.

J

If this is something you have already made it appears to have had a hard life after you finished it with a distressed/crumpled look!

Its hard to tell from the picture what size it is, or what the material is. If its painted metal then the holes might be smaller than 2mm so drilling them on a milling machine would not be too onerous.

Is the material curved in two planes, like a mudguard? that would explain why the fenestration does not look to be on the centreline.

Ian

Think I'd look VERY seriously at photoetching.

Keith

Looks like brass?

I might have made a die block for the flypress perhaps not with all the holes say an inches worth then press index press..... ad infinitum

Paul

The bit of a metric scale in the bottom right makes it easy to see what the size is and how would you drill the rectangular holes on a mill?

Yes I thought brass as well.

J

Edited By JasonB on 26/03/2012 07:27:59

I was beginning to think I had a different picture to everyone else, then I zoomed in! I am still not quite sure what we are looking at, it could be a bit of brass shim but I'm not sure what the original poster wanted to know.

Reading Neil's post again it seems like he has already made the part, in which case he posed the question as a sort of puzzle or test. It would have been better at the outset if he had said so or at least give us a some details of what we were supposed to be helping with.

I saw the metric(?) scale in the background but without knowing how far back it was it was not easy to see its size relationship to the yellow plate. Some of the holes, which I can now see are rectangular) seem to be only partly formed, or are they blocked with paint?

Ian

Looks like its about 5cm square x 6cm

2" x 2.5" approx

and it's been fabricated....

My inital thought was wire mesh which has been painted, then blown with compressed air to maintain the holes

...but it looks like it's been fabricated...and the holes have accuracy

It's the sort of pattern you could create on a sheet of soft metal with an industrial sewing machine which was fitted with a square needle

The alternative would be to make up a die punch block of square needles kind of thing, a lot of work for one job.

There seem to be scratches on each side of the mesh block, like it's travelled across something hard so I will go with the sewing machine guess

Edited By Ady1 on 26/03/2012 09:00:51

To do it by hand I would clamp a piece of wood on the bottom

Brass in the middle

and wire mesh on the top as a template

Then punch the holes individually with a square awl

Would take a few goes to get it right though...lol

I would ask Neil

Punch it but make sure the die takes the correct amount of metal otherwise if it take less than its own area you will end up with stretching.

Cheers

Boiler

Like this:

Brian is very right - the unhardened die plate got nibbled avway by the punch... hence distortion.

But by making the spacings one and two turns of the handwheel apart, it wasn't too tedious even with two annealingas and flattenings.

I called upon the spirits of copper-bashing (or at least those of my long-gone grandfather the coppersmith) and ended up with something a bit like this after some planishing:

The flash & polish makes it look worse than it is, but I may try a last anneal and planish. This is what it is meant to look like (yes I know it isn't dead to scale!):

Thing is, when painted will it look better than some wire gauze or mesh? The alternative is, as suggested, etching.

Neil

The bits below the running board look like a Hunslet i was watching at Porthmadog yesterday shunting flat trucks onthe new line that crosses the road.

I wanted to measure it up but they said i could not as it was working!

I will have to catch it when there not looking

Brian

Edited By Brian Dickinson on 26/03/2012 21:11:14

John (Bogs2) - those wheels are, apparently, used for imprinting patterns on cloth for cutting. Presumably available at most haberdashers - if such a thing exists nowadays!!

Rgds

Bill

Hi Bogstandard2

I do check Avatars.

All are passed if they are non commercial, not Wallace or Gromit or the Tea drinking monkey or similar.

regards David

Edited By David Clark 1 on 27/03/2012 12:23:39

Looks like you will have to get someone to take of Photo of you and Bandit and use that then John

J

Double post

Edited By JasonB on 27/03/2012 12:27:24

The wheels with the star points are called tracing wheels, found in dress making equipment shops/departments. I have some (with different tooth spacing) used by leather workers, for marking stich spacing, these are made of much higher quality steel than the tin plate ones used by seamstress's. Do'nt know where, or if you can get these now, the belonged to my Grandfather, and possibly his father before that, they were leather manufacturers in Dunedin NZ up till WW2 when Grandpa retired.

Neil, what do you use under the metal as you punch the holes? Ian S C

Makes you wonder what prize words the workshop used about the design office when presented with the original drawing.

The wheels for marking leather are still available, this is one of the suppliers I use for woodworking tools but they do leather working as well

Stitch marker