I want to make what basically amounts to a sanding block with a radius (attaching pic)… I don’t want it to deform/dent over time/use - I’m hoping 6061 aluminum will work? It’s pretty big: 30" long x 4" wide and a height of 1.3".
You can’t use liquid cutting fluids on the CNCs. You could probably set up some sort of air blower – you can borrow the air setups from the mill or lathe if you need it.
What is your radius of curvature? How were you going to make the curved surface? What level of precision would you need?
Given the simplicity and symmetry of the piece, it seems that this would be straightforward on the manual mill. (I’d have to double check the X-travel length though.)
It’s a 9.5" radius… it’s for a guitar neck so precision would be important. I’ve seen a few Luthier’s online that have made these for themselves - but there aren’t any commercial products that are sized for the whole neck at once (guaranteeing absolutely even coverage for neck & fret sanding)… so there is some small possibility that I might try to put it on Amazon as a product and see what happens. That would make being able to “mass produce” it interesting (though, how many luthier’s could there really be?).
Anyway - curious if you think I can get that level of radius precision on the mill? Would be a good way to improve my skills on the machine, for sure.
And thanks on the air cooling setups (if I go the cnc route).
This is a trivial part to make on the Tormach, if you’re checked out on that machine I’d be happy to help you with the setup for it. 6061 would work fine, and unless there is a specific reason, I’d think it probably doesn’t need to be that thick to maintain decent rigidity.
Thanks Josh! I guessed that this would be pretty easy to do on Tormach and would love to have someone show me how to set this job up on there… but alas, I’m not checked out on it yet. I just did the mill metal class last week - and have my sights solidly set on getting certified on the Tormach as soon as I can. Do you know who teaches it (maybe you do)?
@jimbojsb we’ve had a slew of summer vacations on the Edu team that have resulted in things moving a little slower than usual. We’re definitely interested in getting you onboarded to teach it over the next month or so.
