Project: Plasma Cannon

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

Hi all I have been a long time fan of overclockers but have yet to make and real lengthy posts so I thought it was about time I did and what better way than a project log. My last 3 pcs have been custom builds but never done a log for them this one is different first ever scratch build and more water cooling in it then I have ever attempted before I welcome you to Project Plasma Cannon.

This is going to be a 50/50 project with some parts being laser cut mostly the parts that are too large for me to do myself as I only have a small work area basically one 2meter long bench. But the other half is manual cutting, hacking and drilling to give the pc a bit of soul.

This sketch-up drawing has a few pieces from the “3D warehouse” big thanks to the guys out there who make items like motherboards, graphics cards and all the bits and pieces that make sketch-up such a massive advantage when planning a pc build. So a bit about this project I wanted to build something out of this world and I was a little tired of the generic box feel of cases also wanted it to look good from all sides even the IO panel AS I was playing the pc game “Warhammer Space Marine” it just came to me that weapon is really cool and so many glowing parts Bingo there my new PC case as far as I know it isn’t the year 40,000 and there not currently in the shops so only way to proceed is to build one.

Its big current design measures it at 1200mm long, 700mm high but a reasonable 250mm wide. It’s going to be 95% aluminum build with highlights of brass that I will probably gold plate and all the visible aluminum will be brushed with the main panels anodised Red. Some parts are plastic like the grip (that’s going to be an old light gun from an X-Box more photos later). And the main vent along the top and sides that’s going to have a light frosting with plenty of LEDs the dark gray panels at the front trying to give the impression of Heat sinks I’m going to try and come up with a way of making them glow giving the impression there red hot! And I may have an external chillier with this hence the quick disconnects at the base. This is a long team project but I will try to keep you guys updated as soon and as often as I can. Please enjoy some eye candy feel free to post any questions and suggestions you may have I’m always open to new ideas and suggestions. Before you ask “how is it going to stand up?” I’m going to have a bi-pod or a cradle for it to sit in I haven’t made up my made yet.

Internal Hardware is sketchy at this stage as by the time I build it most likely something new will be out. So I have designed it to just about fit a full ATX motherboard in but due to the shape of the side panels I will probably be limited to using 2 graphics cards tops so may step down to micro ATX. Plenty of space for a large PSU and plenty of hard drives. Currently designed for 2x 120mm rads but may change this to a single 240, you may think this is hardly any cooling but the 2 Rotary Heat sinks on top and the base are not just for show they have PET Coolers attached with water blocks to give the cooling a bit of a boost this is a bit experiential but worth a shot and if all else fails I will also have either a large external radiator or a chillier attached. A lot of the extras are aqua cooling like the aquaero, multiswitch and pump.

Stay tuned will be posting the next stage very soon...

Design Update


Hi guys finally got round to updating my designs as there were a lot of unanswered questions on the above screenshots.
Some basic full design shots

Internals have been updated a little with a readjustment of the pump not to the right of the motherboard instead of above the PSU! Also replace the koolance HDD water block with a pair of aqua cool blocks though I may not use all the hard drive slot it will still allow me to expand in the future if I wanted to.

This previous post explains theses next screenshots

Just a thought - what are you planning to do about the cables? I see the 3 you have in the stock going down, but wouldn't it spoil the line to have them dangling free? Have you thought about some sort of a mount/dock/pedestal for the gun - that way you can hide all the connections in the dock and the gun looks clean?

Yer one of the ideas on the first post was to have a sort of cradle for it to sit in or a bi-pod but this was just to allow it to sit on a desk correctly. I might be able to add something on to that to cover the cables will look into it cheers cavemanoc

The 3D Sketches doesn't show it that well but there is a slight overhang for the cable ports and the Dvi-D ports are deep inside the side panel without the cables connected it would be hard to see them. Its a shame i didn't have room to fit them on the main IO panel But totally agree that the cables are visible that's why I was planning to make the cables a bit more interesting by getting some of those really nice high quality gold and silver platted normally I would never dream of getting them due to the high cost and there no better then some of the cheep ones.

Then having them all tied together by a polished aluminum round links sort of like a cable tidy but smarter and held together by 2 polished chains this may also include pipes to a external chiller and may be able to hide some LED's in the Links to give a soft glow. Sorry i have got an image to show you (yet!)

With some slight adjustments this Port bay now is removable so I can thread cables inside the case to the back of the motherboard. This upgrade will now allow me to have all the cables coming from this area instead of just the important ones. And also the monitor ports that were attached to the stock just under to port bay have been removed (seen in above shots).

The stand will have a aluminum tube base with 4 clear perspex arms that will hold the cannon it place hopeful giving the impression its floating and a clear view from all sides.Now for some arty screenshots

And one of my favorites

Thanks for your support guys next update coming soon



Please note this isn’t a real gun it doesn’t fire any kind of projectile at all nor am I trying to start a intergalactic war... hope I have made that clear don’t want to wake up one day because of a police weapons team is breaking down my front door!

 

[Samaus]

wow thanks guys was not expecting so much response in such a short time. I totally agree with you all its very ambitious by far the biggest project I have undertaken. But that's not going to stop me, its going to be finished one day

Well, this is different. I am very much looking forward to seeing this build in process - you've got a lot of blood, sweat and tears ahead of you mate!

I will make sure to check off Blood, sweat and tears when i come to those stages ;p

You should add a 'firing' function to it though, so that you can "vent" the case when it gets too hot.

Or perhaps by pressing the trigger you open the end of the barrel allowing you to drain the water-cooling system for maintenance.

haha I will see what i can do ;p

Thanks for all the support guys

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

My Tiny workshop

Please excuse some of the poor images in my posts some were taken with a camera phone.

As I mentioned if the first post I haven’t got a great deal of room to work with *dreams of a garage*. I have plenty of hand tools but for something like this project I needed a bit more power so I kind of splashed out one piece of kit to help me at first was planning to get a basic Pillar drill but due to lack of space I need to get as much flexibility into a small space as I could sooooo... I got a milling machine haha and here it is a Sieg X2 made by Clarke.

I got a small 2 meter bench with all my tools underneath wish I have draws for them all. This is my battlefield where as ‘PhysicsMan94’ put it my blood, sweat and tears will fall.

So it begins

I have got my laser cut 3mm aluminum on order from a brilliant company called “all 4 one engineering” based in Bromsgrove south of Birmingham if you want something cut ask for ‘Shane’ he will get you a good deal. Lucky its right next to my parent’s house so didn’t have to pay for delivery (this image has been updated since I ordered it)

Just some tips if you want to order laser cut items ask not to bother cleaning up the material as this is easy to do yourself and will reduce the cost but if you are collecting it make sure you use gloves as the edges can be razor sharp. 2nd tip is make sure the file you send is perfect no gaps double likes or anything that will need questioning as this may require a extra charge if there operators need to clean up the data file. I work in this area so I know how frustrating bad data files can be.

Ordered a few parts just to get some sizes a standard blue ray drive and a IO bay I don’t think they could have got any more ports on this thing its jam packed! I plan to replace the cover with a brass plate time to start to make that and the support frame

An off cut piece of brass you can find theses on a well know online auction side for pennies ideal for projects like this but my first real attempt at my milling machine not too bad if I do say ;p but the 2 areas marked in black were too small only 1.5mm high and the smallest tool I had at the time was a 3mm bit as you can see I tried to hack at it with a dremel but didn’t have the correct bit for this so ordered one and will do it when it arrives.

These 2 Tiny things are the LED lenses with some careful drilling and slight countersinking got them in snugly may fix them in with a tiny bit of glue just encase.

Search your scrap pile

Got this old piece of unknown grade of 8mm aluminum from a project years ago that I never used perfect just a few modifications to my design as I planned for 10mm but it won’t make any difference. Hack saw out to cut up into manageable pieces

Milling down the top and base to get a very smooth top and base and this is the first notch cut for this project

Few more drills and cuts still loving how smooth the face cuts are with the milling machine covers up my sawing skills

Drilled and tapped with in the background a notch for cables (will make this bigger if needed but should be ok. Notice how nice the brass polishes up even with just a tiny amount of elbow grease.

Started off using this generic countersink bit but it was so useless with this aluminium I needed something better so splashed out on a hardened metalwork bit.

As some on you keep eyed people out there will have seen I have missed out some holes this is on purpose as I want to check out other parts on this project before I drill just encase I need to make a modification or two. Once you drill it’s very hard to undo.
And here is a taste for the next big post... The sheet aluminum has arrived! See you soon guys

 

[Samaus]

what software have you used to design it ?

Google Sketch-up its really good for this kind of stuff just wish the graphics were a bit better but for free software I wont complain, a lot of people use it on this forum and there's a massive amount of tutorials out there. But one thing that sets it out is the 3D warehouse where there is a massive collection of generic PC parts you can just pickup and drop into your design

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

The Framework

Late one pitch black night taking a load of material from the boot of a car wrapped in an old sheet just as the neighbors was arriving... I dread to think what they thought I was doing but anyway it was the laser cut 3mm aluminum and here it is in all its glory very nicely cut holes even the tiny ones

http://imgur.com/GOREUMc

But as you look closely as requested they didn’t bother cleaning up the material to cut down on cost. All it takes is a quick file on all the edges to get it to a smooth finish

This is Just a quick assembly to get an idea of the structure even though none of it is held together at this stage.

Ok can bolt together some of the base frame to test the fit and put some of the other bolts in to make it a bit more stable also a clamp at the end just so it holds together for the photos

A lot of countersinking but will that new bit hardly takes any time at all.

Mostly M4 countersunk hex bolts but the main place has some chunky M6 Bolts too (may see if i can find some plain headed bolts without the text on)

The Barrel air Intake

There where just two old fans I had lying around to test the fit but will be using some more impressive fans later on probably them vortex fans I read so much about that try to direct the air in a straight line rather then in all directions like a standard fan it will hopeful give the edge as It’s a long way for the air to travel through this case.

Test layout with an old PSU the one going in this is much bigger but good to get an impression of where this is heading also shown the blue ray drive sitting on the base support.

Cutting and milling down more supports this one being the central lower part that also one of 3 parts that holds the grip in place. You can see the difference in a hacksaw cut and then smoothed down will a 10mm end mill

Almost there... little too big

There we go

First tears fall

Hit my first snag this is one of the support bars I was drilling and the dam drill bit snapped off and is stuck deep inside so I have tried to mill down the side to get it out but this was unsuccessful bit of a pain but I don’t think there’s a need to restart this bar as the underside will be completely hidden from view, I still can get a tiny bit of thread and the other hold is fine, little snag but not too bad.

luckily holds together well

From now on keeping my drill bits as sharp as I can with this little grinder

Next post is going to be about the grip
Cheers guys

 

[Samaus]

wow loving the feed back guys seems a lot have subscribed I wont let you down

Cant wait to see this! Im presuming your going to enter a comp or two? And most likely win them! Good luck!

Do you really think its that good ? never thought about entering it in a competition. Any suggestions of events happening like this ? it will be a while till this project is finished though

haha wonderful...you should definately impliment some sort of pew pew noise into it somehow.

Keep an eye out for the next build log post it will mostly be the Grip and im going to experiment with some rather cool effects at the electronics stage stay tuned!

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

The Main Grip

Spent ages thinking of ways to get the grip looking cool first of all starting looking at air rifles and then moved onto water pistols and similar things but always ran into problems like theses

Too flimsy
Look was poor/cheep
Too boring/ didn’t look futuristic
Or was impractical to modify

Then finally remembered I had a Light gun from years ago that stuck in a box waiting for me to sell it “XBox Sniper Scope Rifle” it’s perfect looked futuristic and sturdy with an added bonus of an electronic trigger. Maybe I could hock this up to the multiswitch.

Ok so I have my grip now time to strip out all the electronics and mechanics inside with the exception of the trigger switch.

Gutted!

With such an tricky shape and the difficulty of attaching it the main body I needed some method of making sure it wouldn’t come away from the main body of the cannon so my plan was to fill the inside of the hollow grip with 2 sheets of 3mm aluminum that would allow me to attach it the body and provide some stability then fill it in with some plastic resin.

Cool mechanical force feedback but unfortunately it has too go

To get the shape I set out taking measurements of the inside with the help of a trusty piece of cardboard and a knife getting it as good as I could for laser cutting but expect to make some modifications to get it to fit.

Didn’t have this idea till later but going to remove the hat stitch and have a standard single switch and hook that up to the CD tray eject. But am going to keep the hat switch just encase one of you guys have a excellent idea on how I can use it but remember I’m not short on switches on this project. Electronics will come much later when I have the bodywork finished for now it’s just a hole and a support

As expected needed to trip down the laser cut material to fit unfortunately had to trim it down a lot more then I liked but it still has the strength not to snap off. The 2 “claws at the top will fix into the 2 main support bracket at the base of the body and then a slot in the back to give it some extra strength. I will leave the resin till later as I still need to do the electronics and I will need to take this apart at that stage

An so the modifications begin!

The 1st plate allowing for the trigger.

Both plates bolted together

Yes this aluminum is very scratched but in this case it isn't going to matter really as its all hidden by the plastic cover and fingers crossed the rough surface will help the resin grip to the aluminum.

The plastic Grip had to be cut down a lot too with the help of a hacksaw and a mini rotary tool

The green parts don’t really fit will the colour theme of this project so going they are going to be re-sprayed gold. The trigger I was planning to replace this with a milled aluminum one but due to the complex shape and the mechanics behind it Think it’s just best to spray it and have a metal insert below is a Test Piece out of Brass but will probably change this to brushed aluminum

The Gray and black Pieces are going to be totally replaced and milled plates put in with some really cool etched effects and then fixed into the grip and the oval area. Will get you guys some nice screenshots of that when it happens don’t worry you haven’t missed it!

And here it is connected to the body (will get the 2nd claw attachment done soon)

Short piece of scrap to give some stability

And then attached the cover

Next Big post will be the hard drive bay aka the barrel.. Cya soon guys

 

[Samaus]

Thanks again for all the support

I love the look of this.. Get this on Bit-tech, you'll be sure to win some goodies.

May put it on other forums when its complete but for now its staying only with Overclockers

It will be a while before I get onto the internal parts but has anyone got any suggestions on how to get sponsorship for Aqua Computer parts ? I need 7 parts from them for this project but I have never attempted sponsorship before, This is my only build log and my other complete projects are kind of old now but still have them

 

[Samaus]

Thanks guys you have raised my hopes and will send off a few emails soon and see what sponsorship I can get

Just a thought - what are you planning to do about the cables? I see the 3 you have in the stock going down, but wouldn't it spoil the line to have them dangling free? Have you thought about some sort of a mount/dock/pedestal for the gun - that way you can hide all the connections in the dock and the gun looks clean?

Yer one of the ideas on the first post was to have a sort of cradle for it to sit in or a bi-pod but this was just to allow it to sit on a desk correctly. I might be able to add something on to that to cover the cables will look into it cheers cavemanoc

The 3D Sketches doesn't show it that well but there is a slight overhang for the cable ports and the Dvi-D ports are deep inside the side panel without the cables connected it would be hard to see them. Its a shame i didn't have room to fit them on the main IO panel But totally agree that the cables are visible that's why I was planning to make the cables a bit more interesting by getting some of those really nice high quality gold and silver platted normally I would never dream of getting them due to the high cost and there no better then some of the cheep ones.

Then having them all tied together by a polished aluminum round links sort of like a cable tidy but smarter and held together by 2 polished chains this may also include pipes to a external chiller and may be able to hide some LED's in the Links to give a soft glow. Sorry i have got an image to show you (yet!)

Next build post coming in the next hour or so

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

The Barrel / Hard Drive bay part 1

This part went under many different design ideas but finally settled on this one.

A basic frame of 10mm aluminium that’s fitted onto the body then a thin sheet wrapped all the way round

The inside contains 2 120mm radiators may change this two a single 240 but will have to solve a problem with having it lined up with the fans that were in a previous post. Then the hard drives planed room for 6 but at a squeeze could probably get 8 in there but I wanted plenty of room around them to allow the air to flow as this is the main air intake. I have got some koollance hard drive water blocks from a previous build that I never used but I’m really not a big fan of them as you have to have one of the hard drives up side down, I think this will cause me problems later on when it come time to wire them up neatly. So may scrap the water cooling on them totally or find an alternative block

Onwards! The cost of 10mm aluminum if the size I needed was kind of high so searched round a well known auction site to find off cuts of unwanted material and here they are. Some simple print outs and spray mounted on. Was looking for the “spray mount permanent” for the standard blue can worked well in the end

Cut up in to more manageable pieces and drilled some of the holes as it was a bit late that day to start using the noisy scroll saw

Next day and it’s time for a lot of noise and sawing it took a lot of time to cut all these parts and the blades I got weren’t the best just kept wearing down quickly don’t know if that was down to the poor blades or the grade of aluminum it dose seam very hard!

Temporary bolted together next onto the boring part... filing and a lot of it too get a smooth round edge

Finally... done

Ok time to drill and tap the sides to I can fix it to the bodywork unfortunately it’s too big for the bench drill so had to do it by hand and I was a little off but should be OK

Mounted onto the bodywork for a trial fit

Couldn’t resist trying out the barrel end cover even though had to take it off again ;p

Now the two top and base support bars long straight bar for the base and the sight for the top... well I say sight but this thing isn’t something that you would aim really, more point in the direction of things to be blown away

Didn’t have many shots of theses in progress, so to make up for it I asked “lily” to pose for some finished shots

Theses had to be perfectly inline otherwise I would end up with a kinked cover so some carefully drilled pilot holes

And then assembled together also tested out the fan holder in there for fit too

Next time will be applying the wrap and the extras stay tuned!

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

The Barrel / Hard Drive bay part 2

Hi guys Sorry for the delay I have been waiting for some parts to arrive but still no luck and been really busy. So I thought I would do you a short post to keep you updated (sorry there isn’t much work in this). Ok so I’m still working on the barrel at the moment to confirm the size of the wrap around for the barrel I used another bit of card approximately the same thickness before I sent off for more laser cutting from all 4 one engineering.

This time in 1.5mm thick could have done with 1mm but unfortunately they didn’t have any in stock at the time but on the plus side it will give this really cool logo that is also going to act as an exit vent for the PSU some strength. The bigger pieces are in 3mm aluminum side panels that will be in a later post.

As before I asked not to bother cleaning up the aluminum it’s easy to do myself with a quick file.

The very tip of the barrel is made up of 4 (2 of each size) 10mm thick rings that were the insides of the frame you can see in the previous post but this still needed to be cut out and drilled and filled.

Ok need a break from the noise of that saw so decided to start attempting to wrap this aluminium. The notch in it and hole line up well this should support the top as its 1.5mm thick and full of holes it was very difficult to bend correctly a lot of clamps and swearing later I got this far.

And a few more clamps!

The lower part underneath the barrel I’m hoping to get it secure and tight so I won’t need to have bolts down the sides one of the ways I’m going to do this is by having a sort of clamp made with this chunk of off cut.

Btw Keep you scrap guys aluminum is one of the easiest things to recycle all my waste is put into this tub and I’m sure I could find someone that could melt it down and send it back to me so i can cut more parts. Well that my little bit for the environment for this project anyway .

Finally some extra supplies arrived. Off cut brass as I have now run out, Some aluminum Bar and very fine aluminum mesh for the vents in the barrel. Originally I was going to use opal Plastic but changed my mind to this for a hopefully better look unfortunately I couldn’t find any pre-painted but that’s nothing a small of spray can’t fix.

Thanks for all the support see you soon

 

[Samaus]

Just seen some of my images reverted by to there full size

Sorry admins I wont use ImageShacks auto resizing on upload anymore. Hope you don't mind but I have replaced some of the faulty images and removed the "spoiler" tags fingers crossed I wont need to do that to any others.

Cheers everyone for all your support really keeps this project going strong

 

[Samaus]

Done some work on it the past few days should have a build update for you guys sometime tomorrow with some interesting design updates too

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

Hi guys as promised it’s time for another build log update finally got time to finish cutting up the 4 barrel rings and got all then drilled and a shallow countersink on them just so I can secure then together for the grinding.

One of the ways I can make sure I don’t go too deep is by using the head limit (black item on the top right corner of the above image) this is usually found on most bench drills or small milling machines like mine. Unfortunately just when I need it this happens….

That piece of steel 15mm thick in its narrows area! Shouldn’t of broken oh well I ended up using the Z axis rule on the side and sent off for a replacement part as its still within warranty. Onwards now cleaned up the paper templates with a little white sprit and an old rag.

Then secured all 4 rings to the baseplate ready to clean up the internal parts then secured a big plate of aluminium so I can increase my working area sand between another small sheet of trusty cardboard so I can have the rings freely move onto of the plate and also reduce the amount of scratches caused by the bolt ends on the underside.

He we go…

In no time it starts to shine but still needs some more doing.

The insides finally came up very nicely with the final pass with a 120 grit drum.

Now the insides are done I have to disassemble it so I can do the outside. A little mark on the hidden area will allow me to line it up again.

Now the outside needs to be done.

Finish countersinking the reaming holes. Taking care not to go too deep as I haven’t got a head limit.

Ok now that’s done I need to buff up the front of the ring. As you can see from the above photos the front of the ring is a lot darker then the grinded areas I presume this is some kind of manufacturing side effect when the metal was fist cast. A sheet of wet/dry paper and a lot of rubbing should remover this darker tint and reveal the true colour underneath.

Messy Work using wet aluminium oxide paper.

And finally Its all shiny.

Onto the barrel wrap. So decided to remove the frame from the body (seen in the previous post) so it’s a lot easier to work with. This stuff is really thick and tricky to bend to the correct shape.

But with a lot of elbow grease and a solid hammer it slowly went into shape.

Sadly I am forced to bolt it down at the sides but its not too bad (I will improve the countersink at the finishing stage)

Typical my hand drill has ran out of power so back on charge and time to show you hopefully what it will look like in the end placed on

In the meantime might as well cut of the barrel sight covers

That’s not all for now! Those who skipped to the last post I have updated some of the design shots on the first post of this thread
Enjoy!

 

[Samaus]

Thanks guys glad your enjoying the log

Hey,

That looks quite nice - I am impressed with all the manual work you have done, especially with the jigsaw.

The clamp on your clarke mill is a weak point, i have the same mill and the exact same thing happened to me.

You need to watch the Nylon gear inside (spur) it has a tendancey to chew itself up

Mostly I just use the CNC router now to make stuff, If you need any small parts making give me a shout I should be able to help you out.

keep up the good work

Craig

Thanks dude interesting about your head limit breaking too must be a batch of poor quality metal or something. I better check out my gears soon see if there ok . I also found a add on that is possible to replace the gears with a belt drive this is suppose to be a lot quieter and can get slightly better rpm. Thanks for the offer of small parts its really appreciated I will pm you if I need anything

Superb, roughly how much is this going to weigh?

I know its ally but even so that looks a lot of metal there!

I need to get some scales at some point but I am starting to get a little worried about the weight and the case is barely 30% done! now planning to strip down the case and drill/mill out unnecessary metal just before I send it off to be anodised. hopefully I can still use the clear plastic rods as a stand without them snapping.

This is one of those where if I saw this unit built and working:

- I'd demand to see the creator
- Shake their hand
- Buy them a beer of choice
- And request them to talk me through each individual section

Brilliant concept idea and well thought out. It's surprising just how each section works so well.

Great job!

You got yourself a Deal! When done I am hoping to take it to a few LANS or competitions hope to see you there


should have another build progress soon guys

 

[Samaus]

Sponsored by

Hi all time for another update this barrel section has a lot of work in it but its starting to pull together now finally managed to get the wrap fully around a secured without the need for any clamps (that was tricky!)

Nice! Though I do agree it’s a little messy with the cut outs and dodgy failed bolt hole but all of this will be hidden away! Read on

At this point I couldn’t resist fitting the barrel back onto the frame to show you some the full thing so far but still a lot to do. And yes it does seem to dwarf my 2 seat sofa not many PCs can say that

So in the previous post I showed you the sight brass plates and here they are very roughly cut out but I don’t need to be too accurate as intend to grind them down to match the aluminium.

Ok clamped down ready to be drilled

2 basic bolts in there to hold the plates but theses will be hidden from view once the top plate is made

And then a quick clean up on the drum sander on my milling machine with some and filling to get those tight corners. The last thing I will do with the barrel is to polish it and this sight will also be polished at that time.

I'm not fitting theses until the wrap has been polished but may as well prepare them ready its the fine aluminium mesh for the vents in the side of the barrel.

After a few coats they don’t look do badly but I think it would be better with a bit more of a bulky mesh, what do you guys think? Any recommendations on a type of mesh and were to get it from I need a sheet approximately A3 size to cover all the holes.

Ok so the barrel underbelly this is mainly aesthetic but will also support the barrel end in the cradle and will be one of 2 parts on the barrel that will be red.

Ok so start off with an off cut of 25mmx 50mm box section with 3mm wall little bit smaller then i was intending but will cut down the weight a bit

Now 3mm box section is very hard to bend and i don’t have a press so my plan is to mill down the main side so i can bend it to allow it to sit snugly onto the underside of the rounded barrel wrap. I should have waited for my 20mm milling bit to arrive but this 10mm bit did really well. My mill is slightly too small for this kind of item so had to mill one side then the other but that wasn’t too bad as long as the vice is cleaned out so not stray swarf misaligns the work piece.

Ok that’s the one side done as you can see in this shot the one side is now a lot thinner now time for the other side this time I only wanted to take a little bit off as I wouldn’t need to bend this area much and I will need to tap it later

Only slight reduction on the top down to 2mm from 3

Now the steps on the front were milled with a 5mm end mill (take another look at the 3D show too see what I’m trying to achieve with this)

As I think it will be difficult to brush this once it is bent I decided to bush it now using a combination of the drum sander and aluminium oxide paper with a give so I can get the grain going in one direction only. After that i cut a long slot down the middle and bent the box section using a vice.

Hopefully this will look really nice in red!

The end cap for this is a small cut out of 1.5mm aluminium and I’m going to braze it onto the end of the box tube. This is the first time i have used a welding torch since collage and my first attempt didn’t go quite to plan. I ended up melting the corner of the aluminium too much and deformed the shape tricky too see how hot aluminium is unlike steal it doesn’t go red or white hot it stays silver even when melting so this was my first attempt. (sorry for the blurry images it’s kind of tricky to use a camera while doing this!)

But the small torch wasn’t given the heat I needed so I switch the head over to big roaring flame!

Ok so attempt number two went successfully as you can see on the left the join was good but on the right I got the end piece too hot and melted the corner.

A quick cut down to make it easier to grind

Now for the grinding was a little worried here as it looked like the joint had cracked but with a bit more grinding all was fine.

Now in place I drilled at tapped the inside to secure the box section.

With a little hammer encouragement I forced the wrap snugly onto the box section

That’s all I have time for now see you guys soon

 

[Samaus]

3D Renders

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I was messing around with some rendering plugins on sketch-up and came up with theses!

Enjoy!

 

[Samaus]

Thanks again guys for the kind words

Epic build bud im all subbed in

Also If I may ask what sort of press and mill are using as I am looking at saving up for one so I can do an insane scratch build myself in the near future.

Thanks dude I have got a Clarke CMD300 its a entry level mill but I am very happy with it cost about £600 good speed, very accurate and good fun to use. Just wish the Z axis was bigger as I don't have a pillar drill.

Table cross / longitudinal travel - 100 / 235mm
Spindle speeds - 0 to 2500rpm
Spindle Speeds: 0-2500
470w, 230v motor
Spindle Taper: MT3
Table Effective Size LxW(mm): 92mm x 400mm
Dimensions depth x width x height: 514 x 506 x 756mm.

Now this mill is called a Siege X2 its design is sold to lots of manufactures like clarke, draper, sealey and there practically the same maybe the odd tweak but still a Siege X2. there’s some very interesting add-ons that you can get a belt drive to make it a little quieter and a CNC Kit so you can link it up to a pc and do some really cool designs. Now there is a Siege X3 out there but the price is all most double as well as other models but if you want one do your research and find out see what will suit you. just be carefull theses small mills are designed for making small parts don't expect to get whole case in there. Even some parts I am doing are a little too big for it.

As for a "Press" If you mean like a pneumatic/hydraulic one I don’t have one. To get some of the shapes I just use some good old elbow grease and a hammer!

I can't wait to see the end result. Great work so far.

I really like the cable management, but I'm not so sure about how the tubing comes across to join it - but I'm also struggling to think of a more elegant solution.

Thanks glad you like it . I agree the point where the tubes meet the rest of the cables worries me too maybe I should have a larger round link in there may even use some bulkhead fittings or holes in the link that the pipes can be feed through.

 

[Samaus]

Thanks guys I am just started preparing another build post with a lot of images to process hopefully will be uploaded tonight

I love builds like this, so top work fella.

Was wondering if you'd considered wiring up the trigger as the power switch?

I'm going to link the trigger into a light sequencer but more about that later on once I am at the wiring stage . The reason why I dint link it up to the power I didn't want someone coming up and using the trigger then all of a sudden my PC starts to shut down that would be really annoying. The power switch alongside the reset are just above the trigger as you can see in some of the 3D renders.

 

[Samaus]

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Right the where I left last time was just finishing off the underside of the barrel now I need to seal up the front end. I have chosen a really awkward shape a stepped bend paten but threes no turning back now. So I have cut up 5 smaller pieces and bent them into a basic shape to fit inside and then fitted them in place

Once all the pieces are in place I have put it on a really old backing tray and put it in the over to heat it as hot as possible so I can get a head start on the brazing

Little Bit messy but with a quick file down you would never know

Side Panels

Now I would like to do the sides of the barrel but I can’t do that as I’m still waiting for the plastic to arrive! And I can’t finish the top till the side panels are finished as they flow into the barrel top. So onto the side panels and I will have to finish the barrel off once they are done. The side panels are made up of 3 main layers a 3mm laser cut aluminium face plate, a 3mm red tinted plastic and mostly 25mm aluminium box section.

As you can see there are loads of pieces of box section this took a long time to mark and cut them all down.

One by one was cut down to smaller parts.

After a lot of cutting I was left with theses

Now I need to clean up the hack saw marks so I can get a better/cleaner join for this I used this really handy angle rule tool with a digital display and lock.

Then they come off the mill there small areas that rub off easily or come off with a Stanley knife as the aluminium is very thin

Smooth...

Now of all the other parts

Now one of the pieces to stand out are on the side of each panel there is a single 30mm area so I had to order a 30mm box section and mill down one side to 25mm so that it would meet up flush with the other parts but still be the full 30mm wide.

Drilled holes after careful alignment some I had to do with the hand drill but the mill managed most of them.

After a lot of milling and fine tweaking I got all the parts together with the back support for the side panel and a lot of bolts (this will be cut down later)

A Little strip of aluminium for a little extra support

Now to braze all the joints together, I really wish I had the money for an oxy/acetylene torch but this new butane torch should do the trick.

After a few joints couldn’t resist but try it out on the cannon body but still a lot of work to do.

Now my next post may take a bit longer as I have to make another one of these panels and there almost exactly the same but I will include some parts that I left out in this post like the 3mm red plastic.