Thank you, this is a great project.
Thanks!
As the wire is used, the diamond grit would become less "sharp." Seems like by the time it was sold on eBay it would have much less cutting speed than the original. But price matters.
The wire on ebay is not used. It is brand new, just old; arrived in original factory packaging with vacuum seal unbroken. According to the manufacturer it has a shelf life of 1 year and this wire 8 years expired. It also said on the package to use within a week of opening. I think this wire is just fine despite being "expired." I don't have any brand new wire to compare to, but it cuts just fine for my purposes. I postulate that given the delicate nature of the use the wire is intended for, the expiration date is probably to do with purity and QA. The wire MFG is probably just covering their ass, not wanting to invite lawsuits over stray diamond bits or oxidation contaminating a batch of RAM chips due to the end user using some dusty wire they left in an uncontrolled atmosphere for years.
When you go into full mass production of these machines you can sell them with new, "fast" wire.
I'm curious about what they end up with in the cast iron forklift weights.
Buying "new" CI is expensive in small quantities. Would this process enable selling salvaged CI at a profit?
I don't think there is much if any profit to be made in selling wire saws or wire sawn scrap. I worked for a company that made wire saws and it went under due to lack of interest and because the owner was a conman, but mostly lack of interest. Diamond wire is almost always
not the best way to cut things. It's slow, requires a lot of supporting hardware/processes, and ridiculously expensive. It's one of those things where when you really need it, you
really need it; nothing else will do(*). But if you don't really need it, find another way. The only reason it's not 100% stupid for me to do this is because of the access to wire at 2% of MSRP. Even if I got wire and counterweights delivered regularly for free, I think I would struggle to put food on the table selling butchered counterweights because of the time it takes. Maybe I underestimate the value of large pieces of cast iron? I've never seen anything for sale like the chunks I'm after, so I don't know their actual value. But after having cut (part of) the transmission housing, I'm estimating I'll need more than a day to complete a single on cut the forklift.
(*) EDIT: The analogy I used yesterday to explain this to my friend is imagine you have a big tree that needs to come down; a sequoia or something, 10ft thick. You need a really big Chainsaw. But if the tree is made of cast iron, granite, or titanium, a Chainsaw won't be much use. There's only one thing I can think of that would work: diamond wire. But if the tree is just made of wood, you'll be so much happier if you just use a really big chainsaw.
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