Wednesday, February 22, 2017

2/15-2/21

Last week Jez and I took a welding class. The class was TIG welding but was an introductory course that mainly focused on the techniques of TIG welding. It was very informative, but did not give much information on welding aluminum. over the weekend, I studied how to work with aluminum. We went back on Monday and started playing with different settings on the welder on different thicknesses of aluminum. We went ahead and purchased our own 4043 filler aluminum and 98% tungsten tips.

We are making progress on our welding abilities, but it is mainly been an uphill battle. Our deadline is getting closer and closer. At this time we are looking at alternatives to attaching the brackets like bolts or aluminum based adhesives.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

2/8-2/14

This last week we got our order in of 6061 Al T6511 and measure and cut a few pieces. After a couple pieces were cut, I realized our estimates on what we were cutting was wrong. This wasn't a huge issue for two reasons. One being that we were planning to shape the material then cut it to specific dimensions. The other being that I caught the error and corrected very early into cutting material and we still have a sufficient amount of material.

Jez and I also registered for our TIG welding classes. We will be taking that class this Saturday, 2/18. After the class I plan to spend the following week doing practice welding with scrap material we have. Hopefully, by the end of next week, welding of the actual track should begin. I say hopefully because this last week has had a number of setbacks and mistakes. Fortunately it is still early and our deadlines should not be affected, it is only going to be a bit more difficult.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

2/1-2/7

February 1st was our first class of the semester. During the class, we had a guest speaker that gave me some better perspective on the project as a whole. We met as group and made a number of decisions that we had been discussing over break. After announcements, I grabbed a white board and created a to-do list in order for our 1/12th scale track to be completed. I gave Franklin the contact info and invoice for purchasing our stock aluminum. We decided to go with 6061 T65 aluminum over 5052 because I was unable to find any conclusive studies on one material retaining shape over the other. I was able to find. I was able to find that 5052 is a softer material, however, based on prices posted on McMaster-Carr, 6061 was found to be significantly cheaper. 6061 was also a lot easier to source and we ended up purchasing it from Coastal Aluminum.

I spoke with Kevin and we expect that once we have the materials, bending them to our needed shapes will be rather quick. We expect the materials to arrive on February 8th. In the meantime, Jez and I have signed up for TIG welding classes at the TechShop. Originally we planned to take the class this weekend, but it filled up while we were in process of obtaining membership, so will be attending the class next weekend.