Giles' misc. Work bench.

[spikey faz]

Tungsten to the rescue...???

...or depleted uranium?

 

[Tim Watson]

You can purchase tungsten on line (from China).
Tim

 

[alastairq]

China Tungsten, Tungsten Wholesale, Manufacturers, Price | Made-in-China.com

??

Are not special permits required?

 

[garethashenden]

Just be aware that the price of tungsten has skyrocketed in the past year and a half as a result of Chinese export limits. It may still be worthwhile for this project, but it might not be.

My employer, a maker of tungsten carbide cutting tools, has had for it five price increases in the past year, just to cover the rising material costs.

 

[Tim Watson]

Copper tungsten is easier to machine and is pretty dense.

Tim

 

[Giles]

Jib is made up apart from pulleys sheaves, which I hope I may get to do tomorrow

https://flic.kr/p/2smJkWZ

 

[Boyblunder]

Tungsten TIG electrodes are easy to buy, although not sure if they are useful for this project. A standard 150mm 1.5 tip appears to weigh 13g.

 

[bambuko]

In the past I have bought tungsten rivet blocks from the usual auction site, but when I check today... the price has gone crazy

 

[Fitzroy]

Haven't bought any for a while- glad I did when I did.

 

[Giles]

I've managed to buy a set of second hand darts dirt cheap so that will do. I will now proceed to ruin my best tools cutting them.....

 

[garethashenden]

I would recommend grinding…

 

[Giles]

Indeed - though I may see what my laser cutter might do - at least with pre-scoring...

 

[Giles]

Jib now has all 3 pulleys made and installed. For a change, and to see how they went, these pulleys are built up from 3 lasercut discs silver-soldered onto 1.5mm OD tube, rather than my normal turning them up on my Unimat 3.

https://flic.kr/p/2smUKkj

 

[bambuko]

I would recommend grinding…

It was tough but not impossible to mill and turn in my workshop.
It all depends on the kit you have ...

 

[Giles]

I do have a 3 phase mill and Colchester, but I'm not going big for this project. My days of big stuff are over.

 

[Fitzroy]

Jib now has all 3 pulleys made and installed. For a change, and to see how they went, these pulleys are built up from 3 lasercut discs silver-soldered onto 1.5mm OD tube, rather than my normal turning them up on my Unimat 3.

https://flic.kr/p/2smUKkj

I like the cut of his jib!

 

[Giles]

For the record, the tungsten darts arrived, and tungsten lasers beautifully - but I can only get a depth of about 1mm, so it's no good for what I want....

 

[Giles]

The good news for me is I've finally got all the radio control side working. I still had an Rx43 in stock, which appeared to be in the correct configuration, but one channel was in fact doing very strange things, no matter how I tried to reprogram it. I eventually found a reference to suggest that the output wires in question (which one source said would be F outputs) were not infact what I thought, and theat the two F outputs I needed were unused towards the middle of the board. This meant soldering two wires into the centre of the very small board without damaging anything else, or bridging some very small gaps. Very nerve-wracking...... however, I succeeded without damage, and the whole thing works. At that point I walked away, and will tidy it up tomorrow......