www.TK560.com

[PARATECH1]

I would like to start off by saying that the moderators on these boards are some of the best around. I have read and read and learned a lot here for a year or two and have finally kicked myself in the tail and stopped procrasting.

I purchased the 2X4 Protoform plans and oven kit from Doug Walsh A while back and have been putting it all together. Doug has put a lot of time and effort in putting together some great plans that are well worth the money. If you are on the fence about purchasing them, no need to worry. You will easily get your money's worth.

Not only will you learn a lot, they will save you a "GREAT" deal of time and effort.

The new oven kit is awesome and goes together totally easy. With the included plans, it is not hard in the least. You can totally put together from start to finish all of your oven boards and oven frame in just a few hours.

I have made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I intend to share what I have learned so far. I also hope to show a lot of building and cost saving tips when building this type of machine. I have taken plenty of photos and will post them as I go.

Some of the photo's at the beginning stages were not the best in the world.

I have never posted photo's on discussion boards so hopefully I'll eventually get it right.

[PARATECH1]

The first step for me was deciding what type of wood to use. Pricing oak at Home Depot or Lowes in my area was quite a shock. For certain boards that are required were $15.00 - $40.00 each. This wasn't even for the stuff for the platens.

You can save a ton of money on your lumber by going to a saw mill in your area. Red Oak at Lowes or Home Depot for the machine would have been several hundred dollars. For this same wood at the saw mill was aroung 70.00 (With plenty leftover for mistakes). Getting the wood planed was around $30.00. This was around $100.00 total for a lot more wood.

I am a perfectionist. I ended up getting red oak, cedar, popular and pine. I wanted to lay it all out and see what I liked the best. I wanted to have exactly what I wanted prior to starting. I didn't want to put a ton of time and money in this project just to wish I had used a different type of wood.

In the end I used "FRESH CUT CEDAR." Fresh cut / planed cedar is awesome looking. It looks completly different from aged cedar. Fresh cut has a lot of deep purples and tans. Once cedar ages or gets exposed to ultraviolet light the fresh colors turn.

"Quick Tip" - Use a urathine Sand and Seal polycrylic coating. Make sure it says that it protects against ultraviolet light. Also apply the coating ASAP. If fresh cut cedar is used, don't wait around for a day or two to seal it. Otherwise it will turn by then.

The photos of the table base make the colors a lot more brown looking than they actually were.

[PARATECH1]

[img]http://s886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70/PARATECH911/Table%20Base/?action=view&current=086.jpg[/img]

[PARATECH1]

[PARATECH1]

[/http://s886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70/PARATECH911/Table%20Base/?action=view&current=091.jpg]

[PARATECH1]

What am I doing wrong with posting photo's?

[PARATECH1]

[img]http://s886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70/PARATECH911/Table%20Base/?action=view&current=091.jpg

[/img]http://s886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70/PARATECH911/Table%20Base/?action=view&current=086.jpg

[Fredo]

When you're posting, open a new tab to photo bucket, select your album, find your pic, left click on the img code,..that cuts it, click on the 560 tab and you're back with the pic. to your post, right click to paste it in the post. You can preview the pic before you submit to make sure it will come up, also you can post as many as you need to in a single post..........Fredo

p.s. ...How's that perfectionist thing working for you?? If you're not making mistakes,,you're not trying hard enough.
_________________
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you,
it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun...The Dalai Lama..Seattle 2001

[PARATECH1]

[PARATECH1]

Thanks for the assist Fredo. I had to mess with it a little, but finally figured it out.

As for the perfectionist thing - I will totally screw up bigger than crap at times. I have made a bunch of expensive and time consuming mistakes thus far. It has helped me to understand a whole lot better how to do it right or even better the next go round.

[RFC]

Looks like you are of to a great start. I will be watching your project as it progresses. What type of plastic will you be forming?
_________________
Cheers, Bob

[PARATECH1]

I'll be forming pretty much whatever I can. I'll experiment with various plastics and thicknesses of these plastics.

[PARATECH1]

For my vacuum tank I was able to find an old 40 gallon hot water tank. It took a little peeling and cleaning, but I hope it will work great.

I took a piece of cardboard and duck taped it as a connection between a shop vac and a piece of garden hose to suck out alot of the sediment in the bottom of the tank.

I decided to to use a little LimeAway inside the tank along with some water. I sealed the tank up overnight and rolled the tank arond a little. The next day I washed it out several times. I revacuumed it out. Overall It ended up getting pretty clean inside.

I came close to putting some of the sprayed tire filling rubber liquid stuff in it. I would have rolled it around to get it all over the inside walls of the tank. This might have sealed it from future sediment. The downside was that it may have also came loose and sucked inside my vacuum pump.

[PARATECH1]

When it comes to the metal portion of the vacuumformer you basically have two choices - Clean metal or dirty metal. Once again, if you get it at a store like Home Depot or Lowes you are going to pay an arm and a leg for it. Usually at those places though, it is already clean and shiney looking.

A lot of metalwork type businesses make you buy whole sticks of the needed tubing or angle iron. This is a lot of the time in 20 foot sections. Ask them about scraps. Most of the time iron at these places is greasy, dirty and rusty. The thing is that it can easily be cleaned and sanded. I ended up getting my metal at one of these places. I was able to get 20' sticks for around what Home Depot or Lowes wanted for a 4' stick. To me this was a huge difference.

- Tip - Once you get the metal home wipe it all down. You can use mineral spirits / acetone or something of that nature to get grease off (If it is greasy - Sometime's it's not). Sand it all down and then go ahead and prime it. "Yes" prime it. We will worry about welding later. You want to go ahead and prime it because once you clean it, even a little moisture will quickly bring back surface rust. Then you have to sand it all over and wipe it down again. You can usually get a big pack of sandpaper at a Dollar Tree or Everything's A Dollar type store. This paper works great for this. For the primer, you could just use Wal Mart's dollar a can primer spray paint. It works just fine for this also.

After all the cleaning and priming is done measure and cut all of your metal pieces to length. Have a copy of your materials sheet with you so you can have the correct measurements for the correct size piece for the correct size vacuumformer you are making.

"Always measure at least twice and cut once." Also make sure you have measured the right piece of metal brfore you cut it. With all the different sizes you can easily cut the wrong piece the wrong length.

Foe me at least, the best thing to use in cutting your metal is a metal chop saw. You can usually find a good one at Harbor Freight Tools for around $50.00.

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-hp-14-inch-heavy-duty-cut-off-saw-91938.html

You can usually find a 20% off coupon in every issue of Family Handyman or Maxum magizine. You don't even have to cut the coupon out of the magizine. Just make multiple copies of it and buy each item you eventually get there seperately.

If you have never been, "HARBOR FREIGHT FREAKIN RULES." Every tool you need (If you don't already have access to it) can be bought from them at a fraction of the cost at most other stores. Hand tools also have a lifetime warranty.

Once you measure at least twice and cut all of your peices to length you should use a pencil and mark the part number on them. This will help in preventing confusion later.

Now you should be ready to mark and drill your holes in each metal piece. "Again make sure you are marking the correct piece. The penciled part numbers should help in this.

I would very highly recommend using a drill press to drill your holes. It is much much much ( Did I say "Much ) easier and more accurite than using a hand drill. If all your parts are already marked you could have this done in no time. If you use a hand drill you will definitily break a lot more drill bits and have non-horizontal lined up holes in your metal tubing sections. These non-lined up holes will cause a bunch of needless problems later in your build.

If you dont already have or have access to a drill press Harbor Freight once again has a decent cheap one for around $50.00 (after 20% off coupon).

http://www.harborfreight.com/5-speed-drill-press-38119.html

Thats all I can think of right now when it comes to buying, cleaning, cutting and drilling your metal sections. If I can think of anything later I will add it.

If there are any questions so far let me know and I will do all I can to help.

[PARATECH1]

Here are a few of the photos of the metal and a few stages of the chassis portion. I know I have several more good photo's of the vaious steps and will post them when I find.