Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Ha, yeah, had my no-spill oil can vibrate off top of lathe and splatter oil all over,, but after coming to a rest it did not spill any :). Just no smooth cut anyway possible with that. Parting tool made me nervous also :).

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psvuiiwuva.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psyopziuib.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pse3zhhqh6.jpg

Just had to see if it looks the part nex to haul truck.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psltjnm3r6.jpg

And started running hydraulic lines and fittings. This piece I’m using for transitioning from hidden lines to visually lines. Using the frame parts to pass lines through. In the background the same part is installed on loader but doesn’t have threads cut. The small holes are for cover plate to be installed last when I get to body work.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

seeing next to the truck is very nice but you need second loader so you can load from both sides that is a BIG truck

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Nice work Cooper-when I saw the first pics of the loader I thought it was huge but I didn't realize how big your truck was. Looks like they go together perfectly. Good job.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

�� two of them are being built

Yea, she is going to move some material. Will take the strain off the excavatorloading the haul truck in 30 min. ����

Working on hardlines. One isn’t too bad but the replication is a bit difficult with my backyard bending tools :)

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pslhzlatir.jpg

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psza7wm0fn.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psnbizpaee.jpg

Soldering up hardlines and my pressure testing Air compressor only goes to 125psi but can show me any spots I may have missed soldering , just using soapy water.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Finally got some of the upper deck done. Don’t know if my internet is weak or if computer is lacking on the number crunching power, probably the computer. But struggled with the profile on this. Pattern, trim, dimensions,, computer just didn’t want to work for this one.

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psmyoga9uk.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pseo6fkjlg.jpg

And it’s spring time so I had a chance to play with one of the scale trucks. Well lardass wanted to,,,,

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psw7ka0liz.jpg

Got to keep it on the ridiculous side:).

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Good job right there......except Lardass is to big.....overload and some 11&00's is missing in your computer.....other than that it's ridiculous enough for me ;o) Carry on Sir I'm watching !

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Wow. This is really coming together great.

I dunno what's more impressive: scratchbuilt hydraulic cylinders running on perfume, or the texturing on the deck plate.

The cat seems to think your toyota needs helper springs

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Are you not done yet?!

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Lol,,, the bottle that holds my leak finder was donated by my wife,,, she has not noticed it missing in the last 5 years!! Lol!! All the times I have old , almost empty windex, some sort of spray bottle and not one around when I needed it !! So next best thing,, although she has been encroaching on my man cave lately,,, may have to make her slightly unhappy with me ,, then she will not invade my space :). But that is a razor blade ,,, just one sliver too much and it backfires!! Lol!! Naa, she’s been pretty supportive of this,, I’m not getting knocked out or any broken bones so she likes me doing this. ;). The texture would have been a bit more detailed but like I said , computer was not making it easy. Maybe next years project will get a computer upgrade.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Uhh, almost ;). Yeah, I definitely did not take into consideration the time spent on learning and computer design!! Hats off to them programmers!! And I’ve had a good bit of time to devote to this so far!! I do have all electronics and hydraulic system set up. Have not found the final resting place for them. Want to wait till I get the back cover somewhat done to decide exactly where everything will live.

Oh and it doesn’t help that I am still amazed by watching the cnc machine so it’s thing,,, it’s supposed to be a time saver and I just watch , mesmerized!! Time not well spent ;)

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Yeah, I'd be totally doing that too. :D :lol:

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

we need to get you a set of blockers like they have for horses in traffic lol

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Hi

All the work to your high standard as usual looking great.
The top deck looks great love the finish on it.
Were you using fusion on line or offline.
You can have the files locally which can remove internet problems I use this feature when travelling with my laptop and fusion
It also protects you from the internet being down.
PM me if you want further details

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

If the nc file is to big for your mill, what I do is drip feed the mill from my desk top.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

I can run 999,999 lines of code in the mill. The issue I have been encountering is in design software. Well it’s not the design software it’s my hardware. I’ve been finding that my $200 computer has its limitations. It’s been fine for most of what I done so far with fusion 360. But some issues in past that I just assumed were my ignorance are revealing to be processing power of computer. Specifically the gpu or graphics driver. And having a lot of dimensions or model points intensifies the lack of kernels. So I’ve been working around that by using patterns and splitting some operations. Once it gets to the mill I’m good to go. So before long I guess I need to postpone the laptop and get a new desktop. Or a laptop that can handle the requirements. This machineing is a vicious circle of learning, spending, realizing how much I don’t know, having to learn, a bit more spending, more learning, ,,,, but before long I will be able to sit in my lawn chair with cooler next to me , a battery pack and transmitter , hide from the world and play in the dirt !!! That’s my therapy, r&r , vent, that makes it all worth while:)

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Hi DB do not get a laptop to run your mill if you do you will be unhappy with thew results I tried that my desk top has an 8 core with 60 gigs of ram in it it's fast but some times it isn't fast enough. I do cad on it and transfer it to the computer on the mill witch is a lot smaller. Ed

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

ed, the mill has its own controller or computer, the computer I use is my desktop that was a cheep home computer, nothing special. I use it for the design and cam generation only. copy to a usb stick and take over to mill and load it to mill computer. sometimes I have noticed the mill controller may not show the correct numbers in the dro field, but that only did it when I had a program with over 300,000 lines of code. program ran fine, I think it was just a display issue.

as far as the computer issue I know my inexpensive desktop is not up to the task of the assembly files I have in fusion 360. so that is where I am , shopping for a more powerful computer to use for design and cam. and now that I have some knowledge of this cnc stuff I realize most of my time is spent on computer, the part I don't like ;) but as I said before when its mill time I stay and watch like an amazed little kid!!

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

It’s been a while, I have been having a hard time getting into the forum, been really slow. But I have still been making progress on the loader

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...ps59cfve6q.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1k1ki9id.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psffwx6jw5.jpg

And Benny stopped a while back, one with the rc4wd loader

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psos2melmn.jpg

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

One with the skid steer in the bucket

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pslmav0ssa.jpg

And love this one of Benny’s loader with a full bucket

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pstsiuke9e.jpg

Still have had time to keep moving material

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psauxjcjlf.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pszdyxlpus.jpg

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psdzwdftss.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0f5vmtge.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psr8jkiauj.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psgs2rhd9x.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psu23ame98.jpg

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Just insane ;)

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Wow!

Kerst

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Hi DB it looks like you have gotten the mill figured out by the looks of your loader. Ed

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Absolutely incredible work! Thanks for the update photos.

Is that a certi-flat welding table? Been thinking of getting one. How difficult was it to assemble? Stay as flat as they claim?

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Thanks guys!! Yes it’s a certi-flat table. All laser cut pieces and very little draus to clean up. Assembly is very simple and straightforward. A couple taps with mallet and clamp together then weld the tabs/slots. Pretty clever idea for getting a pretty flat surface. I don’t have anything long enough or accurate enough to inspect the 4’ length of table to see how flat it is. 4’ Carpenters level is closest thing for me and table is probably more flat than level. I also got cheep bar clamps , removed end and welded a 3/4” bolt to bar. The stronghand tools are just nuts in price and cheep bar clamps are fine for what I use to clamp stuff down for welding. Moreso just clamping to weld and not trying to clamp down a warped or bent part. But yes I like it very much and am happy with the table. Kind of wish I got a bigger one :).

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psyxxnzk1o.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2c8zr1el.jpg

These are the clamps I made.

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psrlueg7w5.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psiklt3j9t.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psdffn7nb9.jpg

Handrail parts

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psszv77zxe.jpg

Fender mounting braces.

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psvgtja5qh.jpg

Wire distribution block hidden in rear bumper

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psoxafyrxn.jpg

Rear bumpers for articulation of rear axle, and steering hydraulics mount

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9zc016so.jpg

Hydraulic tank. Plenty of oil, and this time I made a bottom drain. :)

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Going along very well I see. I like the handrail mounting hardware.
I was looking at a acorn welding table a couple weeks ago. Would have taken it with me but a little too heavy for my box trailer. The table measures: 5' x 6' and weighs 3850# Taking a bigger trailer next trip.
You planning on coming down to Brownsville in August?

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Like your clamps, great idea. I agree with you that the cost of the commercial "welding" clamps is insane. I usually buy the cheapest Harbor Freight clamps I can find for welding. Like you, just want to hold parts in alignment. Burn up a HF clamp or three it's no big loss. Also like the handrail ideal. How are you going to attach the stanchions to the pads?

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Whats taking so long?? You'd think you're making each part by hand

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Good work Cooper, great to see progress on this again. :cool:

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

You're making good progress on this

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

thanks guys,

zabco, not sure what your referring to on the stanchions and pads? steps? if so industrial aluminum adhesive, (have to keep me in mind, I have no idea what some of the proper names of things are) my self earned degree in redneck engineering keeps me in the stupid simple relm:lol::lol::lol: two left feet and all thumbs sometimes:D

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

I was referring to the vertical components of your hand rails. Technically rails refer to the horizontal bars and stanchions are the vertical supports. But you answered my question anyway. Thanks and sorry for confusion.

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Here are the handrails using silver solder

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psunnupmvd.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psev0yfxkd.jpg

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2erxbtyc.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psshsrxcra.jpg

And I have been wanting to make some sort of fixture for this type of work so I finally got around to it. Alum plate and small pieces with a groove in them for standoff’s. If laying flat on steel I risk the chance of soldering to steel plate. Laying on aluminum plate the alum sucks the heat pretty quick. So with the small standoff’s I can quickly heat and solder parts together. Also made clamping bars so I don’t have to worry about de-soldering or bumping existing joints/parts.

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psfeuguyon.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psqfmdrkdc.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psvfta7riz.jpg

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...pseptg1xr7.jpg

Now only thing I have to figure out is a more precise way to bend things. Maybe next project :)

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Not only are you making a great model, but the tools are also one of a kind :)

Re: Great Dane excavating co.
 

Looks great cooper-I cannot imagine how many hours you have in that soldering fixture but it is necessary. When I was building sometimes I felt like I spent more time making special fixtures than working on the model. After this project it will probably sit and gather dust but hey that's what make things interesting. Nice work!!!!