Morning all.
Almost a year since this project got shelved because of my abject failure to sweat the sole on successfully. Since then I had 2 more attempts at the same thing - tried different fluxes etc, and I thought it was there the last time - but then the thing fell apart again when I dropped it from not very high onto the bench. Thats when it got shelved - enough's enough!
However, after finishing a few cabinets etc, I got the bug again last weekend. I bought some new metal epoxy, cleaned everything off yet again and started again.... I didn't take lots of photos as wasn't sure it was going to work so thats why there are several stages missing.
There was another problem I had to solve - geometry. The low angle - 17 degrees or so - of the blade meant that the mouth was much too far back - so I came up with a solution which was to use epoxy and scraps of steel etc to move the mouth forward by about 25mm. Purists I am sure have already turned away in horror...
I know it looks ugly but this wont be seen because of the sole and the infill
I cleaned up the sole and the bottom of the casting yet again...
I thought I had a photo of the clamp up - but I can't find it. Anyway it was easy - thin layer of 2 part epoxy spread out evenly. Used the 2 little screws to localise the sole and casting correctly, clamped up using 4 holdfasts onto wood on my bench and left it for the day.
And it all went fine. Barely visible joint line
Here's the joint after a bit of belt-sanding
Then I remounted the whole thing in the vice and started very slowly milling out the mouth - was very straightforward - just a case of going very slowly
Until eventually I just started to see an indentation on the sole
Once I ran the belt sander along the sole, I 'broke through' and then used a diamond cutting wheel on the Dremel to cut a 2mm mouth
which worked out quite well...
So heres where we are at the end of the weekend
Comments welcome. Thanks guys