I'm in retirement Nerdvana
 

The GTO is pretty much done which frees up tons of time, I'm building a mini-cnc milling machine, I'm programming micro contollers, my wife got me a 3D Printer, I recently got a decent oscilloscope and signal generator for the electronics bench .... and I'm now retired.

It's like heaven, why couldn't this have happened 30 years ago. I've dreamed of a complete nerd lifestyle like this most of my life :)

And now ya got it. I’m jealous. ;)

Sounds great. Have lots of fun doing what you want to.

Goodness, glad you have joined the club.

Very Happy for you DATAWAY!
Tom V.

That’s the dream isn’t it??

What kind of detail will it be capable of? And what sort of small
project would challenge (and inspire) a detail oriented GTO guy?

I'm just going to leave this completely unrelated pic here.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1670475035

242177P, believe me, that question as been foremost on my mind, and parts like those badges have been dancing around in my head.

At present it's looking like the best accuracy I can expect from my DIY CNC would be in the area of +/- .003". It's got a 24,000 rpm spindle so small tooling and fine detail should not be a problem if the accuracy is up to snuff.

While I feel I could CAD model a part like that badge no problem, my CAM skills are limited at present and I would be at the mercy of whatever software I used to generate the G-code.

There will of course be example photos within a couple of months :)

If I can nail down 3D printing with materials like ABS and Nylon, and get the little CNC working .. I have dreams of making extremely time consuming, expensive, small Pontiac parts that you could otherwise buy for very little money with a few clicks on the internet :) Which is my usual MO when doing a restoration :)

I don't think I'll ever escape the habit of approaching any technology with the question ... "How can I use this to make something for the GTO?"

When I learned how to drive stepper motors the first thing that entered my mind was of course ... "Wow, I bet these could make a really good hideaway headlight motor"

Playing with the 3D printer to learn it's capabilities and those of the various materials you can use.

Pic of some hardware I printed. All 3/8 - 16 thread. Downloaded the CAD files from McMaster and converted them to printable files in Autodesk Inventor.

This material is called PLA, a basic cheap plastic, very easy to print. Parts needed to be run through taps and dies for them to work properly. I can probably scale the prints up in size for the nuts, and down in size for the bolts to make them work without tapping etc. I'd guess 1 or 2 % would do it.

For the most part a person can download the CAD files for just about any part they want to use, including things like bearing, bushings, lead screws, pillow blocks, electrical enclosures etc etc. and prototype an entire project without having to actually buy the parts first. (McMaster has the CAD files for every single nut and bolt they sell, plus many for more complect parts.)

Can't wait to experiment with Nylon for more durable parts that will take under hood temps, and TPU (a soft rubber like material) for use as gaskets and weather stripping.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...4&d=1670517103

Congrats and welcome to Nerdvana!

It's a great place to be and you've earned it.

I enjoy and admire seeing your projects. Keep posting so I can maintain nerd envy.... which is another way of saying your car and all you put into it is impressive.

I'm excited to see what you do with your DIY CAM.

My wonder years in ink-jet printer development keep me interested in printed parts technology but I have yet to pursue it. Before I retired, the ME designers I supported were CAD jockies and the machine shop on site had a high-end polymer printer. The MEs could whip out a test fixture directly from the product part models overnight.... beat the heck out of waiting for weeks.
An acquaintance has fun and makes decent hobby money replicating custom auto and truck wheels for scale modelers. You could definitely find a market for low-demand car parts like the Firebird emblem thread on this site.

I recently watched a Youtube video of a commercial laser-fused powder-met machine printing highly sophisticated pistons for Porsche.. quite impressive! The technology allows them to put metal only where the CAD stress analysis tells them it's needed. Where there's low stress, they print 3D mesh/honeycomb to save weight. Could not machine the same part.

Mike

Man don't tell me about those metal printers .... or laser rust removers, or high end material printers ... I WANT IT ALL, and I want it NOW :)

As Homer would say ... Mmmm, wheels :) I did have a momentary vision of printing an entire GTO model, I started to model one in CAD years ago but the body curves were beyond my skills.

I'm wondering how long before metal printing becomes garage suitable. Watched a video on it not long ago ... uses basically a 3D printer extruding metal particles suspended in a wax binder ... they print, then cook off the binder, then put in a sintering oven which fuses the particles. On the surface doesn't appear to be anything unreachable by the well-heeled hobbyist. (a club to which I don't belong).

Lately I've heard about a low melting point plastic you can print, then use the print in a "lost wax" type casting procedure ... always wanted to get into metal casting, the most I've done is melt aluminum into basic shape ingot molds for use in the lathe or milling machine.

Another dream .... a 50,000 ft/sq industrial building with all my friends with different skills set up in the same place, from carpentry to computers, you bring us a problem, we solve it.

If only the lottery would cooperate.

And testing. Don't forget testing. Solid ingot of unbreakium? Give to... him. :third:

The prices on those laser rust cutters wouldn't be so prohibitive if they didn't have a finite life.

Cool stuff Dataway! Look forward to seeing your space-age innovativeness. I work part time in the High School Auto Shop and have access to plastic 3D printers and a laser cutter/etcher for plastic and wood. The kids make some pretty cool stuff using Autodesk software. The automotive program applied for a 3D metal printer, hope they get approval. Like you are doing, it would be fun to play with.

If you have a furnace capable of melting aluminum, I can see where 3D patterns for lost wax casting would be sucking you into the vortex. Long long ago, one of my college lab courses let us do some aluminum sand casting. We got to bring in bags of empty beer cans to melt down.

As to printing with extruded metal powder in a polymer binder, then sintering, I'm unfamiliar. Definitely sounds DIY friendlier than laser-fusing metal powder! Sintering anything that requires a reducing or even neutral atmosphere sounds like a major expense... maybe that lottery ticket will help.

Have fun with whatever you do.

X2 !

DESTRUCTIVE testing of course :)

Shiny .. yep, the oven looked space age ... I think they were using nitrogen ... or perhaps a vacuum, I forget. Good for something like 3000c, pretty small, but all thick'ish looking stainless steel with a fancy door. Looked to only handle a couple of cubic feet.

Hoov, if I worked in a high school auto shop I'd be there on my days off. I know some of my shop teachers back in the day appeared to have a great appreciation for the high quality equipment they had. I still long after the Di-Arco bender we had in metal shop and the Logan lathes. My high school had an auto shop, metal shop and wood working shop .... AND a live fire shooting range under the cafeteria. TN in the 70's, gotta love it.

Lennar Homes is "printing" housing units in a town near Dallas, check out the video, this 3D stuff is a whole new world

I've seen a bunch of mini DIY furnaces on the internet, they're kinda impressive considering they just use charcoal.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1670543311

If my shop wasn't in a garage under the house I'd already have one of those foundries. Years ago I was machining a lot of odd parts in aluminum that required large OD rounds, or large square chunks ... quite expensive to buy, so I'd melt up the scrap and pour into welded up molds. Melting with an Oxy/Ac torch was a paint.