MFH Lancia/Ferrari D50 in 1/12th scale

[nick]

1 hour ago, albergman said:

Yes, hardwood is the key (I've used cocobolo, padauk and ebony).   You need a tight, dense grain that won't come apart at such small dimensions and yours will be even smaller than mine!  The rivets were "a bridge too far" for my skillset but maybe a CNC can manage them.   It'll be interesting to see if you can pull this off Nick ... another very marketable product!

Well remember I’m going to make 12 pieces fairly straight pieces with the grain, like the real one, not cross cutting like the (very nice) one-piece one you made. I do have some ebony actually as well. 

[nick]

On a roll now. Heres what I had in mind for the wheel.

 

 

I'm going to CNC cut the ali centre as the MFH one isn't drilled like this, so seeing as I can get the holes a lot more accurrate by CNC it's easy enough tio just remake the thing. I'm going to use several short pieces of ebony or walnut like this to get the grain as per the original. I have chosen to stagger the front and rear wooden sections in the drawing as this makes sense to me, not sure if the original was really like this? don't need to decide until I assemble it anyway. I've found some nice .5mm dia brass tube to make the rivets.

 

Be remiss of me not to render something this pretty

 

[albergman]

Oh my that does look gorgeous Nick.   I'll be even more impressed if/when you can pull this off at your scale.   The rivets will be in nanometres.

 

 I have to get into rendering!

[nick]

Well that went pretty well for a first attempt. I can line the grain up better, the depths need tweaking and a final finishing pass, but all in all. I’m liking this.

 

toolpaths…

 

outlines

 

first full version

 

sorry Frank, not very old-school at all but hey!

 

 

[nick]

As first attempts go, I'll take this.

 

 

Needs refinement, but I know where I went wrong, so I'm pretty confident that I can make this work now.

 

Stand by for V2.

[albergman]

Wow!   That's impressive.   The power combination of Fusion and precision machinery.   I bet these will be in big demand Nick.   My cocobolo one came out the nicest as it showed some grain and you could tell it's wood.  The ebony one (on a wooden 450S Maserati which I've never shown here) had no sign of grain at my scale and looked like it could have been black plastic.   

Frank

[nick]

Wanted to check the colour of the wood with clear coat. It looks right to me without any further colouring. 
 

 

all still dog-rough, so I need a better finishing pass on the CNC, but I think I’ve pretty much cracked how to do it. 
 

the Ali is about scale thickness, but it’s VERY weak, I may go up .2 to .5mm it won’t really show and should be a lot stronger. 
 

for some reason, I’m particularly pleased with the ‘nobbly-bits’ on the back. I wasn’t sure how to tackle drawing these, so I just sized a sphere to about the full width, created a circular pattern and upped the number until it looked about right. Then just filleted into the rim a bit. Even if it’s not quite right, it would be very hard to achieve by hand. 
 

Nick

[albergman]

Would you consider using brass rod instead of the tube Nick and you wouldn't have that tiny hole?    Looking very promising though.   The camera exaggerates every imperfection and I bet it looks way better in RL.

[nick]

Hi Frank, I went to great lengths to get ‘the tiny hole’ - the full size has it according to my refs!

 

I thought you’d got the hang of me now🤓👍I wouldn’t do something that hard by accident. 
 

Nick

[albergman]

Well well, I stand corrected.  I've only ever seen them as solid.   

[nick]

I really don’t use my CNC machine enough, spent today re-making most of the silly mistakes I made when I first got it. Anyway, it’s all starting  to come back to me a bit now and Im getting decent results.
 

Here’s the new centres machined from .5mm instead of .3mm. Much, much better and I think they still look about the correct scale thickness. I need to polish them up a bit more, but I reckon they’re OK. I just need to get the wooden rims up to the same standard now. 
 

 

 

 

 

[nick]

Meanwhile, at the steering wheel factory…

 

;

[HK-500]

impressive machine work !!👍

[Noel Smith]

Found the Novel Life mini bench saw  machine  both on Amazon and Ebay after looking at the link you kindly posted....both saying out of stock unfortunately and not sure if they will be getting more of them.

Could not find any other UK suppliers on the web  so will have to keep looking or seek a good alternative.

Your particular machine has been getting good reviews from what I can see, and their video looks impressive too.

 

The wood rimmed steering wheel you are doing looks really good. Did one some years ago in 1/16th scale in thin aluminium sheet and pear wood veneer for an AC Cobra model.  Not a patch on what you are doing though !

Edited October 30, 2024 by Noel Smith

[albergman]

What marvelous precision from this machine.   Just the ticket to tear out sets of the metalwork required for steam locomotive motion!   

 

Question ... Would it be advantageous to polish the entire sheet of metal first Nick instead of having to polish the delicate finished piece?   If the machine has to work on the face of the sheet maybe you could just mount the polished side down? 

 

[nick]

Well that was wheely hard.

 

I'll get me coat.

 

 

First complete wheel. I haven't laquered it yet. I've got the process fairly repeatable now. I may be able to get it slightly neater, but not much I suspect. I may try a different wood. It's currently walnut as I had thin strips. I may try ripping down some ebony I have.

 

Stand by for the next version!

[nick]

done. 

[albergman]

Fantastic!    Segmented and rivetted too.   Gonna be in great demand I bet.   Now you'll need to make a four spoke version.

I'd be interested to know if your machine cuts the metal sheet without any attention from you once the plate is  secured?    Or are there tool changes to be made? 

Frank 

[Noel Smith]

I jokingly said in a post on one of Nick's threads that he would soon be making after market stuff for MFH models !!!!

Joking apart that wood rimmed wheel looks fantastic.

Maybe a Bugatti steering wheel will be on the cards along with the other proposed Italeri T35 parts in development.

[nick]

4 hours ago, albergman said:

I'd be interested to know if your machine cuts the metal sheet without any attention from you once the plate is  secured?    Or are there tool changes to be made? 

 

Hi Frank, to get a bit of an insight, I recorded the fusion 360 (manufacturing module) video simulation for you. Click the play button bottom left, If you look at the detail on the left, this shows the tool changes. My little CNC machine has an auto tool changer with 6 locations, this is the first time I've used all of them!

 

 

 

[CrazyCrank]

26 minutes ago, nick said:

Hi Frank, to get a bit of an insight, I recorded the fusion 360 (manufacturing module) simulation for you. If you look at the detail on the left, this shows the tool changes. My little CNC machine has an auto tool changer with6 locations. This is the first time I've used all of them! Click the play button bottom left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi @nick

Simply gorgeous 😍

What model of CNC are you using?
Is it expensive?

[nick]

1 minute ago, CrazyCrank said:

What model of CNC are you using?
Is it expensive?

Thanks, It's this little beauty, a 4 axis Carvera.

 

 

Expensive is a relative term! I got in early on the kickstarter campaign with mine, so saved myself some cash with that. Also not long ago an auto tool changing 4 axis machine would be North of £20,000 , so to get one on the desktop at all is an amazing achievement. 

 

So to cut to the chase I paid about £3,000 for mine. I think the full price now is around £5,000-£6,000. So yes it's a lot, but it's proper, accurrate little machine not a toy or construction kit like most of the'low cost' machines. I don't regret buying it one bit, although I do need to learn how to use it properly, I've barely scratched the surface of what it will do.

 

Nick

 

[CrazyCrank]

59 minutes ago, nick said:

Thanks, It's this little beauty, a 4 axis Carvera.

 

 

Expensive is a relative term! I got in early on the kickstarter campaign with mine, so saved myself some cash with that. Also not long ago an auto tool changing 4 axis machine would be North of £20,000 , so to get one on the desktop at all is an amazing achievement. 

 

So to cut to the chase I paid about £3,000 for mine. I think the full price now is around £5,000-£6,000. So yes it's a lot, but it's proper, accurrate little machine not a toy or construction kit like most of the'low cost' machines. I don't regret buying it one bit, although I do need to learn how to use it properly, I've barely scratched the surface of what it will do.

 

Nick

 

 

I've just had a look at the website of ERM, who supply the MAKERA Carvera 4 axis in France: it costs 7180.00 € including VAT here....wow...not for me, nor for Santa Claus!

 

[albergman]

Thanks for that Nick.  The mind races at the potential this thing has for doing metal work.  Mind if I ask a couple more questions ... no?   Oh good.  Looks like you made this piece using those toothed bits with the plastic collar.   Are there no actual drill-bits used even for the holes?    And can the tool holder rotate to various angles?   I'm guessing yes, hence the 4-axes.

 

Frank

 

Update ... just watched a couple of videos on it and I see the tool-bit stays in the vertical position.   Also got a better look at the bits being used.   

Edited November 2, 2024 by albergman
new information

[nick]

50 minutes ago, albergman said:

  Looks like you made this piece using those toothed bits with the plastic collar.   Are there no actual drill-bits used even for the holes?    And can the tool holder rotate to various angles?   

Hi Frank,

You mostly answered your own questions I think. Tools 1,2,3 and 5 are just drills. The plastic collects are fitted on standard shank tools with a provided tool and just ensure there is constant shaft length when they are in the holders for the automated tool changer to pick them up consistently. 
 

Nick