Hi :)

[xy mosian]

Louise, I take your point about the cost. I hadn't gone so far as to look at what quantities were available, sorry.

But. Does it have to be circular? I have just done some sums. Say the outside diameter is 1220mm and thickness 12mm. If I get the sums right the difference between the outside length and the inside length is 75mm, or 21.4 x 3.5 mm saw cuts. If you can tolerate a 22 sided 'wheel' then the drum could be bent the other way around, kerfs inside. That's going to use a lot less filler and time. For ease perhaps a 24 sided 'Wheel' could be used?
xy

 

[Mike.C]

Hi Louise, welcome to the forum.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Louise, I take your point about the cost. I hadn't gone so far as to look at what quantities were available, sorry.

But. Does it have to be circular? I have just done some sums. Say the outside diameter is 1220mm and thickness 12mm. If I get the sums right the difference between the outside length and the inside length is 75mm, or 21.4 x 3.5 mm saw cuts. If you can tolerate a 22 sided 'wheel' then the drum could be bent the other way around, kerfs inside. That's going to use a lot less filler and time. For ease perhaps a 24 sided 'Wheel' could be used?
xy

The kerfs were going on the inside anyway..

Unfortunately no it cannot be done 22 sided, nor 44, nor even 100. The wheel runs on upturned castors in the base unit, the test piece I kerf cut I spaced the cuts 30mm I think it was and once bent to the 1240mm or whatever it was diameter you can feel the steps on the outside, you cannot see them but you can feel them running your hand over it. If there are slight bumps in the surface as the wheel rotated on the castors it would make noise, I am using some soft non marking rubber tyre castors but even so with the thing being a giant sounding box I think once the cat gets up to 15 or 20MPH (and they do!) it would get quite noisy.

That is why I am contemplating 20mm or even as low as 15mm spacings, not because it is needed for the bending radius but to get as smooth an outside surface as possible. It is also why it will be a bit more necessary to fill the kerf cuts because they will not be bent to close position if you see what I mean.

For the wheel in the picture I posted it would not matter using less steps as that has a bearing shaft attached to the back face in the centre of the wheel, but the disadvantage of that approach is you waste space behind the wheel for the stand and bearing, and the stand really needs to extend to the front of the wheel on the floor for stability where my design the base unit is smaller than the wheel - much smaller footprint for a given track width and no assembly for the user - put the base unit in place, pop the wheel on top, job done

 

[Louise-Paisley]

This is the type I am making, these ones have small diameter castors/ rollers and you can hear the noise they make, I am using larger castors which will not need to spin as fast (quieter) and softer rubber tyres (also quieter I hope) but you can imagine what the noise would be like if the outside has regular humps - my cats run full pelt in the wheel, and I mean FULL PELT! the cats in the video are really just strolling along comparatively speaking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpdeJeCCe54

 

[monkeybiter]

Can you laminate three or four layers of uncut 3mm ply, perhaps around a former, with the joints staggered? That should give you a smooth outer surface and less work, if the thin ply will take the bend. If it's too stiff/brittle you could maybe try a timed soak in water?

And of course 'Hello'.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Can you laminate three or four layers of uncut 3mm ply, perhaps around a former, with the joints staggered? That should give you a smooth outer surface and less work, if the thin ply will take the bend. If it's too stiff/brittle you could maybe try a timed soak in water?

And of course 'Hello'.

I did try exactly that, in fact that was plan b after steaming 6mm. It was 3.6mm ply I think which was the thinnest I could source local, but just when it got to the required radius it creaked and cracked. I was quite surprised as a 2 foot radius is not exactly tight, but then again to be honest the ply was pretty crap quality to start with.

The other down side being to get a good bond I think I would have to look at a vacuum bagging setup and not quite ready for that yet really. Now if I had access to a workshop featured in a WIP thread not a million miles away from this one :mrgreen:

If the Kerf cutting does fail then I will fall back to that plan but try and find some locally that is worth a bit more than 50p a sheet LOL

 

[Losos]

By the way, I am NOT responsible for making that appalling bench thing, my pal made it.. I may not be a joiner but I do have some standards

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I think you'll fit in nicely here - sometimes time and lack of materials means we have to 'make do' but I'm sure you'll be making something else (bigger, stronger, and better joints) very soon.

The router is a great tool and can do so many things but do please take a few minutes to think about the safety aspects, you know what I mean I'm sure but even 'tho we've never met face to face I wouldn't want to be reading about how you've lost a finger or worse.

You'll see from my signature that I am a dog man, this does NOT mean I dislike cats it's just that we've always had dogs.

Are you a member of Catsy.com which is run by the same guy who runs Dogsey.com

 

[Richard T]

Deleted.

 

[xy mosian]

Louise, I take your point about the cost. I hadn't gone so far as to look at what quantities were available, sorry.

But. Does it have to be circular? I have just done some sums. Say the outside diameter is 1220mm and thickness 12mm. If I get the sums right the difference between the outside length and the inside length is 75mm, or 21.4 x 3.5 mm saw cuts. If you can tolerate a 22 sided 'wheel' then the drum could be bent the other way around, kerfs inside. That's going to use a lot less filler and time. For ease perhaps a 24 sided 'Wheel' could be used?
xy

The kerfs were going on the inside anyway..

Unfortunately no it cannot be done 22 sided, nor 44, nor even 100. The wheel runs on upturned castors in the base unit, the test piece I kerf cut I spaced the cuts 30mm I think it was and once bent to the 1240mm or whatever it was diameter you can feel the steps on the outside, you cannot see them but you can feel them running your hand over it. If there are slight bumps in the surface as the wheel rotated on the castors it would make noise, I am using some soft non marking rubber tyre castors but even so with the thing being a giant sounding box I think once the cat gets up to 15 or 20MPH (and they do!) it would get quite noisy.

That is why I am contemplating 20mm or even as low as 15mm spacings, not because it is needed for the bending radius but to get as smooth an outside surface as possible. It is also why it will be a bit more necessary to fill the kerf cuts because they will not be bent to close position if you see what I mean.

For the wheel in the picture I posted it would not matter using less steps as that has a bearing shaft attached to the back face in the centre of the wheel, but the disadvantage of that approach is you waste space behind the wheel for the stand and bearing, and the stand really needs to extend to the front of the wheel on the floor for stability where my design the base unit is smaller than the wheel - much smaller footprint for a given track width and no assembly for the user - put the base unit in place, pop the wheel on top, job done

Hi Louise, of course you're right. My mistake. For some reason I had in mind the castors being in contact with a protruding rim, which of course could be as smooth as you like. Must learn to read more accurately.
xy

 

[mailee]

Good lord Louise, what a small world it is. I used to live at the back of Freemo market with my parents many moons ago! And my father worked on that terminal you mention. (he worked on a safety boat during the building) And just to top it off my workshop is in Cleethorpes. Got to admit you are right about Scotland it is God's own country......in the good weather. :lol:

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Well I am gob smacked..

Before I joined the latest thing I was searching for which landed me back here again was a Wealdon twin bearing trimmer bit with replacable blades, which I immediately ran over to the Wealdon webby and bought along with a 10 pack of blades. When I came back to the UKWorkshop for another lurk around I came across a post about the Mathias Pantorouter..

Well I think you would have to be insane to not be impressed with the creativity Mathias has, nothing short of a genius IMO.

Well, I thought to myself one day I am going to make one of those come hell or high water, maybe a touch ambitious just yet seeing as I have been doing joinery for about 20 minutes, but one day.

So over on a completely non cutter related board, it is actually a support forum for the Cougar and Silver Bullet digital cutters/ plotters which I have and I am administrator of the forum and pretty much a voluntary support assistant for the lady who sells the cutters, I have been posting about the cat wheel project - really just because I use the cutter to plot out full scale drawings to cut patterns/ jigs etc. Well I had to post a link to the video of the pantorouter and say what a fantastic idea it is, blah blah, one day I will buy the plans and make one, blah blah..

That was yesterday, this morning before heading up to the workshop I checked the forum for new posts and I had PM. One of the members found the pantorouter website and bought me the plans to make it as a thank you for helping to solve the problems she was having learning how to use the cutter/ plotter when she first got it! How sweet is that

Anyways.. I did manage to turn off the laptop without studying every single image and word in the plans and get myself up to the shop.

Made a quick jig to hold the rim blanks while I trim them to size using the compass setup - The compass is basically two 30 inch bars for the router fence, the adjuster part on the fence has a hole to mount a supplied pin for cutting circles but it would not last being used repeatedly in the same template so I put a 6mm bolt through the centre of the jig and filed the exposed thread down until the fence part just slips over it - perfect.

Put the rim blank on I made the other day and centred it, surprisingly it was only about 1mm out of a perfect circle! But I made the quarters so the blank would have 6mm to trim outside and in just to be safe. So trimmed the rim blank and cut the groove which the running surface will sit in, rounded the sharp edges with a 6mm bearing guided round over bit, Sanded the half laps which were not quite exactly half and had about 0.5mm ridge.

I then dragged out the bit of 12mm ply which I tested the kerf bending on to see how it would fit in the groove, its only 12" wide so the proper article will be 4 inches wider, but it fit like a glove.

Also made a start on the kerf cutting jig, made the sled and started the guide rails but hunger and rain stopped play

It's not anything spectacular I know, but for me it is a thing of beauty, I am really chuffed with it so far :lol:

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Good lord Louise, what a small world it is. I used to live at the back of Freemo market with my parents many moons ago! And my father worked on that terminal you mention. (he worked on a safety boat during the building) And just to top it off my workshop is in Cleethorpes. Got to admit you are right about Scotland it is God's own country......in the good weather. :lol:

I lived in Legsby Ave when I was 17, good old bedsit land LOL

When I was working on HIT2 I was living in Barcroft ST just off Grimsby Road. Amazing who you bump into on the internet isn't it about a month ago I was talking to someone and they said they were from Paisley but moved to England about 7 years ago, I said how strange, I am from England and moved here 7 years ago.. It turned out they lived in the next street to where I am and they have moved to a couple of hundred yards away from Barcroft St in Clee.. What are the odds of that I wonder!