Brian Weick
06-12-2008, 6:51 PM
For those that know me by now, yes it's another Frankenstein creation, I also have the rock in the background to keep that type of mood in the pictures~ LOL , anyways, I created this about 4 years ago because I would like to be able to put stock in,rip it to size, shape the end and drop down to a finish table ~ done, meanwhile working on other projects while it was doing it's job rather than me standing there mindlessly, becoming a human feeding machine. Rather than hand feed every piece in one at a time, I had a stack system where the first piece dropped with a jig in the front that would only allow 1 board in at a time, I never took pictures of that, that I regret, but it was really a smooth running feed system.
in creating this,I was trying to figure out what piece of technology is already out there that I do not have to reinvent for the power feed,,,,,,,, bare with me, so I am about to go to my current project, push the garage door opener,open the house door and stood there watching this mechanical invention moving slowly up, so a light goes off in my head~(doesn't happen that often) I must have pushed that button 15 times that day, standing there watching it go up and down, up and down, up and down, meanwhile my neighbors are scratching there head , looking write at me, ,,,,,and I am staring at the solution to my problem right in front of me. soooo,
I head over to Overhead doors after work and ask the guy if he has any garbage overhead door drive systems,and any miscellaneous parts that I was looking for, I explained to him what I was doing and he thought this was a real cool thing that I was doing, so all is good, he takes me in the back to the junk pile and I found 3 that I thought that would work. so I cannibalized a few of them with the gears and then put this assembly together over the next 3 days, trial and error. then I was going to use rubber caster wheels and attach a 1-1/2" sprocket to the spindle that the wheels would go to , then I fabricated the frame cage/tension springs for the wheel spindles using the old "I" frame from the commercial grade garage door opener and miscellaneous springs I found. the motor I got off a old furnace that someone threw out the same day, so now I had my motor drive as well. You can't use the garage door opener motor~it over heats and shuts off, it is not meant to be on a constant run operation.
Once I had it all together for the power feed it was time to create the Craftsman digital Radial arm saw into the radial router. It really wasn't that difficult to create a metal harness for the router. I took the motor housing out . fabricated the router harness out of steel , mounted it it to the yoke assembly, printed out a 360 degree readout, pasted it on Plexiglas and mounted that to the center yoke lock down bolt.
Once I had everything together I had to fabricate push down wheels for the power feed to line up just off center to finish the power feed system.
I used roller skating wheels for those~ i hated to see that "hot wheels " logo with flames on there, it looked so cheesy~ but the truth of the matter is it worked great, the grooves in the wheels kept everything aligned when moving down the line. I had a separator "like a riving knife" that was thicker on the backside that moved the waist piece away from the router as it moved down after being riped, that was adjustable to what ever width I was going to need, up to 12" .
Anyways,
This was a really fun project, and this machine was so versatile and did not depend on me to keep it busy as long as I had the stack in. the problem, for me, it took a very large footprint in the new shop and I really could not justify keeping it because I did not do enough to make it worth taking up valuable space that I needed for a more useful purpose. But I could get so many different profiles because of the ability to angle the bit to the field up to 45 degrees. No matter what I fed in, it ran like a Swiss watch, but it took a lot of trial and error to get it write. I wish it was still together, totally dismantled and scraped for another day of reinventing the wheel~LOL, the one part that is still together is the power drive assembly with the motor, that large sprocket is from a bicycle~LOL,this may come in handy for another brainstorm project some day.
Brian
in creating this,I was trying to figure out what piece of technology is already out there that I do not have to reinvent for the power feed,,,,,,,, bare with me, so I am about to go to my current project, push the garage door opener,open the house door and stood there watching this mechanical invention moving slowly up, so a light goes off in my head~(doesn't happen that often) I must have pushed that button 15 times that day, standing there watching it go up and down, up and down, up and down, meanwhile my neighbors are scratching there head , looking write at me, ,,,,,and I am staring at the solution to my problem right in front of me. soooo,
I head over to Overhead doors after work and ask the guy if he has any garbage overhead door drive systems,and any miscellaneous parts that I was looking for, I explained to him what I was doing and he thought this was a real cool thing that I was doing, so all is good, he takes me in the back to the junk pile and I found 3 that I thought that would work. so I cannibalized a few of them with the gears and then put this assembly together over the next 3 days, trial and error. then I was going to use rubber caster wheels and attach a 1-1/2" sprocket to the spindle that the wheels would go to , then I fabricated the frame cage/tension springs for the wheel spindles using the old "I" frame from the commercial grade garage door opener and miscellaneous springs I found. the motor I got off a old furnace that someone threw out the same day, so now I had my motor drive as well. You can't use the garage door opener motor~it over heats and shuts off, it is not meant to be on a constant run operation.
Once I had it all together for the power feed it was time to create the Craftsman digital Radial arm saw into the radial router. It really wasn't that difficult to create a metal harness for the router. I took the motor housing out . fabricated the router harness out of steel , mounted it it to the yoke assembly, printed out a 360 degree readout, pasted it on Plexiglas and mounted that to the center yoke lock down bolt.
Once I had everything together I had to fabricate push down wheels for the power feed to line up just off center to finish the power feed system.
I used roller skating wheels for those~ i hated to see that "hot wheels " logo with flames on there, it looked so cheesy~ but the truth of the matter is it worked great, the grooves in the wheels kept everything aligned when moving down the line. I had a separator "like a riving knife" that was thicker on the backside that moved the waist piece away from the router as it moved down after being riped, that was adjustable to what ever width I was going to need, up to 12" .
Anyways,
This was a really fun project, and this machine was so versatile and did not depend on me to keep it busy as long as I had the stack in. the problem, for me, it took a very large footprint in the new shop and I really could not justify keeping it because I did not do enough to make it worth taking up valuable space that I needed for a more useful purpose. But I could get so many different profiles because of the ability to angle the bit to the field up to 45 degrees. No matter what I fed in, it ran like a Swiss watch, but it took a lot of trial and error to get it write. I wish it was still together, totally dismantled and scraped for another day of reinventing the wheel~LOL, the one part that is still together is the power drive assembly with the motor, that large sprocket is from a bicycle~LOL,this may come in handy for another brainstorm project some day.
Brian