Scanning and Software

Playing around a bit this weekend.

I was watching a show on Revision3 (more later) called "Hak 5" and they mentioned a site called Ninite that allows you to download and install a bunch of freeware all at once. One of the programs was Inkscape, an open source vector drawing program. Mention vectors and you have my interest! I downloaded and installed it. I loaded the logo of my favorite beverage, Moxie:

Taken from the internet...

Cleaned up in Inkscape and loaded as a dxf in Rhino... Very handy...

The other project was playing with the David scanner software. The demo is free but limited in resolution. The software, a line laser ($15.00 at Home Depot) and a webcam is all you need, more or less...

First scan I did...

Another scan in Rhino...not perfect but certainly shows a lot of promise and I'll play with it more.

Back to Revision3...they used to have a show called "Systm" and there's a great episode on using the David software. In the show they mentioned "Meshlab" which is a mesh manipulation program. It crashes a lot (at least for me) but has some cool features for aligning meshes taken from scans, smoothing, etc. Here's an Instructable about using it.

Have fun!

Leon Dionne's Mill Tooling Plate

Leonne Dionne's latest, his tooling plate and mill tooling:

My Taig mill is mostly unmodified except for the tooling plate I made for it.

Tooling plate is made of 1/2" thick aluminum, 5 inches wide.

The Sherline rotary table is shown here mounted in the vertical position.

This riser block allows me to use the Taig tailstock with the Sherline rotary table on my tooling plate.

Vee blocks (or should I call those X blocks) made from 1" square aluminum stock.

Joseph Osborn's Tail Duct

Joseph Osborn says, "By the way, your instructions for the radius turner were great; I was able to get the first part I needed from it made up fairly easily. I've attached two photos showing the raw part and the finished assembly. It's a 1/35 scale tail duct for an MD520N helicopter, which doesn't have a conventional tail rotor but instead blows air through its tailboom and out a perpendicular duct at the end of the boom. The main part is turned polyurethane resin and the brass is photoetched and bent into assemblies to fit the main part. No way I could have made this part without using the lathe!"

Landrum Haddix's Column Brace

Landrum Haddix wrote, "I know this has been done before, but check out my Taig column brace. I'm tired of adjusting the column before and after I use anything with much side force, like a boring head, fly cutter, or shell mill. I had an end mill get 'sucked' into a part and before it broke it knocked the column over went for China into the part and finally threw it across the room. All I did was try to walk across the hall to use the bathroom and boom. Moral: nothing fails when your hand is over E-stop."

John Rollason's Taig Leadscrew

John Rollason says, "some pictures of the lathe recently supplied by yourself via my friend in Florida. We have fitted a manual leadscrew as I can't get on with the rack and pinion. The production version utilizes the redundant carriage handwheel at the right hand end. There is no drilling or damage to the bed. We are proposing to market the kit, is there any interest from your side of the world? Cost would be be about $90. ex works. I don't have a web site but I would be happy to be contacted via email:" g3wco@idnet.com

Bob Eckstein's Handwheels

Bob Eckstein sent pics of his latest mod:

I thought you might like to see a very simple way I found to improve the readability of the scales on Taig lathe handwheels. The diameter of the wheels is approximately 31.46 mm. giving a circumference of 98.85. With the additional thickness of a sheet of good quality paper, the circumference is exactly 100 mm.
I used an open-source graph printing program to print 2 mm gradations on the paper and then applied narrow strips to the handwheels on the cross slide and compound by moistening the paper in thin cyanoacrylate cement. This gave 50 divisions per revolution for a measured advance of 0.001 inch per division. Much more visible than the markings engraved in the metal.

Use of the 1210 Radius Turner, New Article

I put up an article showing one way of setting up and using the 1210 Radius Turner.

Use Of The Taig 1210 Radius Turner