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MCI 102-C3 coach to RV - Engine Bay

Fucking finally happening. The first printed runner came home today. I cleaned up all the edges with a file. Perfectly snug fit all the way around.

I'm tired and a storm is a brewing. I'll try to mess with this more tomorrow.

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Testing. Acetone is typically used to smooth out 3D printed PLA surfaces. Figured I'd see if it could be used to extract the PLA bucks from the welded manifolds. Turns out acetone causes PLA to expand and become rubbery. I'm thinking this will be even easier to remove than I thought.

I submerged this at 7:20 PM and checked it at midnight. It's like a wet noodle. My assumption was that it would turn in to black slime that would sink. It may be more like pulling a silicone mold out.

The other bucks will get printed this week. And possibly welded.

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Buck number two in. This one was done on a different printer. The process took hours less than the other and printed a little cleaner, although it took a little more filing to get in to go into the flange. They're starting on the third buck tomorrow.

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wrapping these with material of some sort and welding it up is the plan? rather than having them printed from powdered metal of some sort (IDK the heat tolerance that's possible these days)
 
Mr. Mindless said:
wrapping these with material of some sort and welding it up is the plan? rather than having them printed from powdered metal of some sort (IDK the heat tolerance that's possible these days)
Click to expand...
Correct. I'll be winding them with stainless tig wire and tacking it quickly, one wrap at a time so as not to create much heat. I'll have a spray bottle with water handy as well.

Couldn't tell ya what the heat tolerance of this PLA is, but it is quite sturdy. I don't expect it to be unscathed by the heat at all. However, it'll hold up perfectly well to the intermittent tacking that I plan to do.

I was coming up short on better ideas to achieve this. Having them printed would have made my day, but the rough cost for that was $18k each. Casting was an option, but I estimated about $3k in a forge build that could accommodate the size of these. Funny thing is the guys that are printing these for me now just got one of these for their mill- 3D HYBRID: AM FOR CNC
 
Pretty happy with that. Welding may commence tomorrow evening. Neighbor wants to see the process.

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