Mentor needed as well as help on a school project!

[stupoty]

I've been seriously thinking of doing precisely that. I have a fairly complete woodshop. About the only thing I don't have is a wood lathe, but I could obtain one of those fairly easily. I was thinking of making a really huge wooden replica to iron out all the manufacturing bugs. Maybe as large as 2 feet in diameter. Something where the parts would be so huge the tolerances would become easily manageable.

This would be the best approach to be sure. But it would also be quite time consuming just to build the wooden replica.

I've been looking over the parts drawings, and I have found a few parts that are going to be quite a challenge to make. I have some ideas for moving forward. But as you point out, even those parts will best be made quite a bit larger first time around just to work out the manufacturing details.

The biggest problem I see is not the complexity of the parts, but their extremely small size. Some of these shafts are only 2 mm in diameter with a ton of complex features milled into them. Talk about the size of machines. We need a milling machine small enough to sit on the stage of a microscope just so we can look through the microscope to do the milling.

The smallness of the parts may become the nemesis that slays the project. These parts are seriously TINY!

Even the mini lathe I suggested for Racer is going to be a mammoth compared to these tiny parts.

I may have gotten myself into something far smaller than I can deal with.

The complexity of the parts doesn't bother me. But the extremely small size does. These parts are formidably teensie weensie.

Have you seen mathue wandle on youtube?i think his chanel is called wooden gears, he's for sure quite an interesting charector and maybe sometimes does things the hardest way possible but he does from time to time do some interesting things,

He makes a lot of gears using a bandsaw and as u say the tolerances go down (or at least become more managable) 1% of a mm is tiny but 1% of 20cm is actualy mesurable by an average person. (Just)

Ive been doing some practice parts of a small nature and getting things to all match up nice can be quite some work, even figuring out how to hold parts so small can be dificult. I have been using the super glue to a piece of aluminium plate method a bit and other work holding methods that are good for small parts.

Stu

 

[racer8412]

Well a month after I emailed them, a local makerspace got back to me and they own a lathe but not a milling machine, Saturday is their next open make night and I'll head there to check it out and post pictures of the machines for opinions on if If I can get it done.

 

[Robo_Pi]

I'm guessing you meant Matthias Wandle. Yes, I've watched a lot of his videos. Very clever craftsman to be sure.

As far as the small parts go, I'm actually thinking in terms of mass production. Mainly because on this Curta Calculator there are a lot of parts that need to be duplicated 15 or 20 times. No point in trying to machine each part individually. Better off making tooling that will allow the mass production of a lot of the required parts.

@ Racer,

Better hold off buying any machines or tooling until we actually figure out how we're going to build these parts. The lathe I suggested will work for a lot of the larger parts, like the body and the main circular parts that go on the main shaft. But when we get into making the tiny transmission gears and shafts, even that mini lathe might be a mammoth. These parts are extremely tiny. As well as being complex.

One of the hardest things we'll need to make are the setting shafts. Part# 10061.

This shaft would be easy to make if it was an inch in diameter and 6 inches long. But its not. It's extremely tiny. The extremely small size is going to be the challenge here.

This isn't just your normal machining job. Because of the extremely small size. You're going to need to use drills a mills the size of the hairs on your head.

I might have bitten off more than I can chew here myself. The complexity didn't scare me off. But the tiny size of these parts is becoming a real nightmare.

 

[Robo_Pi]

@ Racer,

I think the best approach to this project is to just start with a couple of the most difficult parts to make. And just think about how we might make those most difficult parts.

I'm starting with the count gears Parts 10038 & 10053. I think I've already figured out how to make those. But now I need to go and actually make them. That's a lot more work than just figuring out how to make them.

The next part I would like to tackle is part number 10061 the setting shaft. I think if I can figure out a way to make a bunch of those easily we'll be home free.

I could be wrong though. I still haven't looked at all the parts. There may be more parts that could be difficult to make as well.

In fact the setting shaft could be the straw that breaks the Curta's back. It's got to be one of the most difficult parts on this thing. It's certainly the most difficult part I've seen thus far. There could be more difficult parts yet to come, I haven't been able to look at all the parts yet.

I have a real life to live, and I better go do that right now. I've already been spending too much time on this Curta Project. I'm so easily distracted into interesting projects like this.

 

[Robo_Pi]

Hey Racer, I have a proposition for you,...

I'll offer to be one of your mentors if you'll agree to being my student.

I have a homework assignment for you. I shouldn't need to do all this work. It's your project.

 

[mikey]

I just happened to read through this whole thing and it seems to me that your first step, Racer, would be to look up any members that are even remotely close to you and see if one of them might be interested in this project. You seem like a bright, capable and determined young man but this is not a minor project. It will require a great deal of time to teach you how to machine the required parts and that is asking a lot of someone who doesn't even know you. What's more, the mentor, if you can find one, needs to actually be rather skilled and his shop will need to be pretty well tooled up. And there will need to be a waiver signed by your parents before anyone would even consider letting you touch any of their tools. You are asking a lot, Racer, and it will take a very special person to step up on this one.

I wonder if a better option would be to consider if this project can be 3-D printed. That might be possible in the time frame you have available and with the budget you have. You might give that some thought.