Makin' a box
For this week, we had a bunch of options to explore. One of them was sheet metal manufacturing. As part of the lion head, I'd like to have a replica of a summit register, pictured below-- little metal boxes with books that you can sign your name in at the summit of big mountains. Sheet metal is generally how those are made, so I wanted to use it specifically to match the construction.
The goal is to have this box come out of the lion's mouth. I scaled the model I had to the size of the actual lion head, and then designed a fold-out box that could fit. I laser cut the box, a top, and a tray for it in the FabLight at the CBA shop.
I filed the edges of the pieces to de-burr it. The next step was folding the metal. On some of the pieces, I lightly etched the lines to fold with the laser, and I used sharpies for the others. The software was pretty finicky, and the best way I found to engrave those lines was to have them separate from all the other ones. I used the finger break to fold the metal along the lines, which was pretty satisfying. I did have to design the folds to fit around the fingers, and to give the spot welder clearance (which I'll get to in a bit).
I used the finger break to fold the metal along the lines, which was pretty satisfying. I did have to design the folds to fit around the fingers, and to give the spot welder clearance (which I'll get to in a bit).
For the edges of the box, I folded some rim tabs all the way around to for a nice smooth surface. I hammered them flat ON AN ANVIL, which was cool as heck.
I folded the remaining tabs, and bent the parts closed. The last tabs and the second to last sides had to be folded at the same time, so I bent the sides a little back to slide the tabs past by hand. I squeezed the box closer to closed.
I brought the pieces over to the spot welder, which clamps down and welds. I used the clamp to hold the pieces in place, after squishing the edges into position. The bottom clamp had to fit in the box, so I designed it to be wide enough to accomodate. The final box turned out great! The top, unfortunately, wasn't quite big enough. Tomorrow, I'll make a larger top, and make some attempts to laser engrave the front of the box.
Tomorrow
I checked out an online tutorial for converting svg files to dxf in inkscape. I imported the HMC logo, and got it engraving on the FabLight. The machine stopped once or twice with a message of "Too many tip touches" -- when I looked inside, it had some weird buildup on the tip. The two times it happened, I wiped it clean with a tissue while it was paused, and it continued just fine. The final edition of the box came out great!
