whether the warrior Khans ever skied is beyond me, but nevertheless, meet Kublai, a new addition to our collection:
of course it was inspired by the works of Head Monkey, hydrant71, and others within this community...
cattrack and heat come standard.
and what color you ask? well, that's a surprise....
wow, what a monster!!!!
...nice, indeed...
I like the name of this beast...
What are the material sizes on this beast, I-Beams/Channel/etc? Is it also strictly bolted together, or is there some welding done also? Great job, and I look forward to seeing the progression. --Geoff
Your mold doesn't appear to be stiff enough, but it has nice camber - when its not screaming 'let me out!!'
wow, what a beast. have you done load calcs to determine the need for
a center member for beam flex!!!!!! hee hee
. massive. big pieces
of steel kick ass. i agree that the mold may need a little work, may need
provisions for RL adjustments unless you plan on only one running length.
nice work.
jason
You guys need a welder! the bolts are the weak points now, looks good tho
before i started the design i did some basic calculations assuming simply supported boundary conditions. i don't recall any red flags, but i'll double check with Solidworks/Cosmos or ANSYS FEA before i push on the gas...
there are two bottom beams (12x26 I-beams) and two top beams (10x26). the bottom beams are 95" long and the top are 105" long. vertical supports and cross members are cut from 2x6, 0.25" to 0.5" thick channel, with the exception of the two lower inside cross members which are made from 2x4, 0.375" thick channel. i purchased the steel from a metal yard and there's a nice thin layer of rust from being exposed to the elements. i cleaned the rust off one beam (top beam shown in the photo), but it cost me a brand new harbor freight hand-grinder ($17.99 + tax) -- the bearings disintegrated with no warning. now i own a dewalt grinder valued over four times the HF, which should last to clean the remaining three beams and the channels. the frame is temporarily bolted together. i don't know how to weld, but i plan to have it welded before it's painted. i'm taking advantage of the fact that it's assembled to build the bottom and top mold, cattrack, test the bladder, etc., before i dissemble it to paint. oh, i have the parts for the base and casters -- inching it around the garage gets old as i'm not much of a leaf cutter...
overall dimensions: width: 22"; height: 51.12"; max length: 105"
cavity dimensions: width: 18"; height: 13"; length: 95" (lower beams)
current weight (just beams and channel): ~1000 lbs.
with the molds, bladder, etc., it'll probably be around 1200 lbs.
i went with the open-throat design because i wanted room for the bladder to freely extend.
if Kublai fails as a press, one friend suggested: bunk bed
With the amount of $ you must have spent on building that you prolly could buy this. but dont get any ideas, i want to buy it... just have to sell the asphalt business first. lol
big kam,
obviously your beams are plenty strong. extra insurance could come from
welding but if grade 8 bolts were used i believe it will be plenty strong. shear strength of a 5/8" to 3/4" grade 8 bolt is pretty high. just look at the
high capacity 50 ton shop presses available
http://www.grizzly.com/products/H6233 . these are bolted
with only eight fasteners for a much higher capacity that we will never need. weld some beads if you are in doubt but i think it will hold together just fine how it is. looking forward to seeing the finished product.
jason
This is my first post after browsing this site for awhile. First up Well
done Kam, Kam and Kelvin for creating such a brilliant informative website. Because of this site i have gone from knowing nothing about
ski construction to an understanding of the process.
Anyway great press, i dont think you are going to have problems with that thing falling apart, its a beast.
If you dont mind me asking how much was the cost of all that I-Beam? I only ask because eventually i hope to build a press similar to yours (not as big though!!) and was wondering on cost. Thanks for your help.
I'm a little bit surprised by the weight. Not so long ago I designed a press like that but I came up to something like 6-700 kg without mold and so on.
Would it be possible to make some little drawings from the press because I don't completely understand the way you've built the vertical parts.
Geoff
Jason: i think you're right, but i'll consider the insurance. boy, i like some of Grizzly's stuff. i have one their cabinet-style table saws -- green beast.
heliski989: that press is nice...better get it. i'm feelin' a tingle in my fingers as they type this...
Tassie Boy: all the steel cost a little over $350US. i purhased enough 0.75" square aluminum tubing (0.122" thick) to make a small suspension bridge across the street to my neighbor's house; there will be some left over to make the cattrack ($200 for aluminum). bolts and nuts are expensive so i won't admit that part. not sure if the steel was a good price, but it's water under the bridge at this point b/c Kublai makes me sleep good at night. but when it's all said and done, i'll have invested $1500 - 2000 US (including heated blanket).
Geoff: i might have underestimated the weight. maybe another 100 lbs for the steel? the cattrack will weigh about 50 lbs. funny thing: i originally chose 0.75" square steel tubing (0.122" wall thickness) and placed an order with a local metal supplier, including cuts. then i thought: gee, how much will that cattrack weigh? using my 4-function calculator, i punched a few numbers and wow -- 170 lbs! i reconsidered, punched some more numbers and went with AL. i dialed the supplier an hour later before the cuts were made...phew!
i plan to write an article about the press design, including CAD drawings, etc. it'll take some time, but i'll try to keep everyone up to date via this thread...
Thanks Kam for telling me that.
I'm not sure if that is a good price or not either.
Again nice press and i cant wait to see it progress!
How is the press coming along, Kam?
here's an update:
one mold is done -- roughly 10 - 16 mm of camber, depending on length of ski.
finished the cattrack; wow, it took a long time to drill and clean the holes.
fire hoses are done (two of them, each 9 ft. long); used Head Monkey's parts list for air valves. tested the hoses at 30 psi. oh, the hose came from rockaukum (thanks!, and this is one of the reasons why we created this forum!!!)
i'll perform a dry-run test in the next few days.
profiled cores today for a new ski. bases are cut and edges attached. i plan to test Kublai by pressing a pair of skis in the next few days -- no heat cure; i'm in the process of gathering parts for the heater...
Hey guys,
Time winding down in the northeast ski (building) season, and my friend and I have hit a snag. Our cheapo planer used to profile cores flat-lined last week, and I can't really find anything for sale at a reasonable price except another cheapo planer. I've never tried the router bridge method, and think it might be a little late to try to get it right for this season.
We were hoping to get out five to ten (maybe fifteen) pairs in the next month (!!!), and would try to reach out to anyone within 150 miles of Albany (Harry, my friend, is in Saratoga Springs) who might be able to provide some help with our cores.
We would certainly reimburse for your troubles. We are hoping to just run our cores, in our crib, through your planer. Or, if you have access to a CNC machine, this could be an ideal solution (we're currently looking for a commercial signmaker or machinist who would help us out in our project, but no luck so far - we're widening our search). We have the files made in AutoCAD 2007, but, being beginners at the digital side of this, don't know much about getting the solids and/or planes into a machinable format.
We also have just finished a brand spanking new press (its our second, pictures coming soon), so maybe we could help you out on this side of things.
If you think you might have the opportunity to help us out, I'd be grateful to hear from you.
cheers
Craig
Love the site, me and a coworker are going to start rolling our own. Anyway, we've been brainstorming mold/press ideas with design flexibility as the top priority (i.e. easy switch from making a carve ski to making a powder ski). I thought of a novel way to create molds faster than the current MDF laminate method. The idea is to make a vertical laminate of polystryrene foam (like the blue sheets they sell at Lowes, etc.) and then cut the mold profile using a hot-wire. Then lay-up fiberglass on the foam to create the mold base. You'd end up with a shell of fiberglass with a core of PS foam. The questions are:
- is this easier than cutting out MDF to laminate into a mold (I think it would be but, we're just starting out so we haven't done the mold yet)
- will this mold stand up to pneumatic press use? Certainly it will stand up to a vacuum press, but pneumatic might be too much.
It is much easier to cut molds out this way. I do it for vacuum bagging longboards, it's pretty easy to make new designs. And it's cheap too
I would say it depends on what kind of glass and resin you use, and how much!!!
How about, make a hollow mold this way, and fill it with cement and wires? that would hold up for sure
.
http://universalconstructionfoam.com/pdf/eps_data.pdf
doesn't look like the strength is high enough without glass for pneumatic pressing, and having to glass it and then sand it, etc... makes mdf still a better solution imo.
Sure is a great idea for vacuum bagging though.
I'll be trying it with my pneumatic press once I've got it set up. I'll get back to you.
Idk when that's going to be though, hose is being shipped soon.
Hmmm, so you might be able to get away w/o the glass on a vacuum press... that would be quick & easy.
We talked about hollowing out filling with something with more compressive strength (concrete, epoxy, etc.) but that seemed expensive, time consuming and heavy.
Keep us posted Steevner.
I have pressed one board in a mold made of Roofmate foam. My pneumatic press have pushed the foamblock to half of his height. (70psi 60C)
The board looks like a potato chip with big resin pockets etc.
Maybe for vakuum bagging.
Why not make the hollow mold with the fibreglass and fill it with SAND and close it off with a wooden board of some kind. It's pretty cheap and you can poor out the sand afterwards to use in another mold...
Looks very beafy! Solid aluminum, be careful because around here people will sneak in and take the aluminum for recycle $! Also, good choice in beer (on the table) and you do not need to post a safety disclaimer. I have a good recipie for a home brew to replicate the Pale ale if you are interested.
RA
obviously, i'm more excited about working on Kublai than devoting weekend time to my day job -- yes, i'm one of those work-alot-people... i have to just to maintain buoyancy.
i assembled the mold, cattrack, and hose. here are two photos of Kublai at 50 psi:
at this pressure, one would need either a laser interferometer or a capacitive sensor to measure the deflection of the beams -- Kublai seems solid, but i'll have it welded anyway.
again, i'll write up an article describing the press, as well as a method for layup. stay tuned...
Kam,
quick question on the press. When the lay-up is done and it ts time to put the mold into the press, are you side loading or do you have to load the mold from the end? It looks like the mold is too long to side load and then how are clearances between the top portion and the bottom mold?
rockaukum
you're right, the mold is too long to load sideways.
the mold will remain in place. with no air in the hoses, the bungies pull the cattrack and squishes the hoses against the top mold. that leaves a nice gap between the cattrack's bottom surface and the top surface of the bottom (base) mold. now think of sliding a sandwich into the gap, where the sandwich is all the ski materials, expoxied and ready for pressing. i haven't tried this method yet, but a quick dry-run seems to indicate that it will work. here's how i plan to do it:
1. on a flat table, start with a thin sheet of hardboard, cover it with painters plastic.
2. lay the base material with edges attached, line everything up, apply epoxy.
3. continue to add other layers, finishing it off with the topsheet, then
4. cover everthing with a thin piece of uhmw and carefully wrapping the painters plastic around the sandwich like they do at the deli,
5. slide the sandwich in between the cattrack and top surface of the base mold, line it all up, then turn on the gas....
maybe i'll put together a short video to help illustrate this method...if it works.
bigKam,
The method that you describe is pretty much the same that I have used on my last few skis. It works quite well. Here are my variations. Instead of hardboard at the bottom, I use a thin aluminum sheet that has been form bent to fit nicely with the mold contours. Instead of plastic, I've been using parchment paper, an idea I think that you posted at one time in the past. It lays nice and flat, doesn't get leaky little holes in it (like the plastic sometimes does), and is a bit more environmentally friendly than the plastic. Tape won't stick to it, so I use little clamps to hold it the the aluminum sheet until the whole lay-up is together. Then, I also use aluminum for the pressing layer, with parchment paper between the topsheet and aluminum. The whole lay-up assembly then slides nicely into the 2 inch'ish gap between bottom mold and the bladder. I use a pretty elaborate system of index pins along the way that I seem to be continually revising for improved efficiency. Oh, because the parchment paper is open along it's lateral edges, controlling resin run-off can be a challenge at times. I spray my aluminum sheets with mold release just in case things get a bit out of control.
Instead of building a cat-track, I took 3 layers of 1/8 masonite, spread glue on them, stuck them in the press and let the glue set up under pressure. Now I have a 3/8 thick, pre-formed masonite layer that stays bungied to the top mold, just the same as a cat-track. Cheap, quick, not too dirty, and has a really smooth bottom surface for pressing. One downside is that I'll have to make a different pre-formed layer for each different length ski, but it only takes about 30 minutes to make the layer. Also, my system won't evenly distribute pressure over a wider area like a cat-track will.
G-man
wow big kam,
do you have an army of oompa-loompas in your shop cutting, routing,
and assembling?????? you put that together quick. looks really good, nice work. as g-man was saying a indexing pin system will make loading your
cassette much less of a chore. it will ensure that your running length
starts and ends exactly where you intended, without eyeballing and
guesswork while epoxy is oozing everywhere. i like going with a flat
lay-up (flat cassette) which eliminates the need for prebending tipspacers
and edged bases. both methods work well, each has its own +/-.
keep us posted on the heating system. plan on heating my press soon
but am confused with what type of controller to use.
looking forward to seeing the first pair.
jason
hydrant71,
I went back and forth between the flat cassette system and the formed one a bit, myself. As you say, they both have their own benefits and little problems. I use a short length of 6" diameter PVC pipe to pre-bend the edged bases... very fast and works like a charm. I clamp the nose of the base to the roller with a bit of bar stock and roll away. I don't anneal my edges, and a 6" pipe works perfectly to get the needed tip curve. I made some long tipped squeeze clamps to temporarily hold down the core ends during lay-up. I also use the clamps to hold the whole sheebang together while I'm loading it into the press. I just found that the pre-formed cassette fits into my particular index pin arrangement better.
G-man
done.
looks like the cassette-layup method works well. i'm going to consider G-man's AL sheet next.
i have a name picked out, but need to think about it more....
they are twin-tip skis, but they don't appear that way. that's because the shape of the tip/tail molds were more relaxed than i intended. but viewed from the side the skis look fine; and i thought about G-man when i designed the shape of the tips -- now you can use tip and tail clips to attach skins to 'blunt' tips/tails
.
i used a new technique for the graphics (not sure if this approach has been mentioned -- too lazy at this point to search). anyway, i'll describe it: at Michael's craft store i found a packet of special paper where you can print graphics (like mirror images) and then iron them on a t-shirt. what a neat idea i thought. and it works beautifully. but what i discovered was: like die-cuts, you will have to cut out the graphic then carefully arrange them on the fabric and iron. otherwise the areas that should be 'clear' will actually be a semi-opaque film that sticks to the fabric. not pretty. oh, the paper works well with color ink jet printers. i just used black (a laser printer too). the color does not bleed either. very nice. it would be nice to get a hold of a roll of this stuff, or i suppose you can print multiple pages and stitch them lengthwise to cover a ski... hmmmmmm....
these skis have two kinds of metal: thin sheet of steel (0.002") and a couple pieces of AL (0.016" thick). i also added an entire layer of VDS rubber between the wood and base material. the metals are also sandwiched between the wood and base. i wanted to create skis with more damping. let's hope they work. but don't think that they are heavy. they're very light, in fact. i used pine (cheap and with knots too!) and D. fir. the core thickness is at most 9.5 mm.
the sidecut is deeper than usual for me. i modeled this ski after one of my favorites: Rossi Mega Bang. i intended to use rubber for tip/tail spacers and also planned to router a slot in the core to add rubber, but initial tests indicated that it was difficult to bond rubber to epoxy. i'll figure it out... (btw, Kelvin and i have the answers from Roy at QCM and we're in the process of putting the info together to post....such good answers from the epoxy expert!...stay tuned; next expert is for base materials!)
well, i get bored if i take too long on a project, so i work fast. besides, when you're excited about something, it goes fast. surprisingly, i assembled most of the press myself -- the two top beams i managed to lift and bolt (i wouldn't recommend it, but there are clever ways...i enjoy problem solving.)
i'll write all this up soon... now i need to think about testing my new rides...
Ey Chihuahua!! Absolutely gorgeous.!
That made me laugh out loud and I woke my wife up. Now I'm in trouble.
Your ski designs and graphics are always so creative and different... and you're so incredibly prolific. Interesting choice of materials. I'm anxious to hear how you like the pine. Oh, a suggestion for the name... knotty boys!... except I don't see any knots on the clear topped ski. Wow, super thin. How's the flex with all that metal in the mix?
G-man
these skis are awesome! i really like the grafics - and very special design! but it looks great. i suppose this kind of tips will also create a lot of uplift in powder...
i`m planing similar tip and tails for my next pair, well,actually just "straight" and not with that kind of butt-like shovel. what was your idea behind this design?
Awesome press Kam. I think you got a fairly good deal on the steel since I spend more than that I my press is considerably smaller (I think using W16 beam increased the cost a lot). My steel also came from a yard and had a nice patina on it. I started to clean it up but after only a minute decided to just use some rustoleum and paint right over the surface rust. It ended up looking good after two layers and was a whole lot easier so that is a solution you might want to think about.
You mentioned a layer of vds covering the whole ski. Was this done with multiple strips or did you find a source for wide vds?
One more thing, Is the cattrack for snowboard making? I have been looking into this and the solution I like best is a 10 diameter hose I found locally. 9 is going to cost just under $400 but I think in the end it will be worth it.
Oh and as for color my money is on kublai becoming a green machine.
here you go:
if you look closely at the yellow ski, you'll notice a hint of a knot on the left edge about 6-inches above cord center. so far the flex feels really nice. i'm quite excited about skiing them. i think the layer of VDS will make a difference (powdercow: i just used three wide strips to cover the base) i'll give a test report after this weekend --- a large group of friends (including Kelvin and Allyson) and i will be at Whistler to ski. there's new snow on the way!! today i cleaned them up at Kelvin's, using the wet-belt sander. oh, i'm sure you've noticed that the core appears shifted in the yellow ski. as i was profiling the wood core, the router splintered the D. fir along the outer edge, effectively reducing the width of the core at the tips. since the core no longer covered the tips, i had to compensate by shifting the core during layup. at the tip one side has wood sidewall and the other is glass. no big deal.
something different. Kelvin thinks i'm going to 'pitch-fork' a tree in the backcountry with those tips. maybe so, but i'll have fun doing it...
it's a surprise. i'm tinkering with something, and it'll be ready toward the end of March!! it'll be fun and it'll make you laugh, i promise!
whoa. i want one.
how in the....what in the...?? did you find my skibuilding project book?
YES. but specifically lime green.
Gnarly knots... dude
.
G-man
This my friend will be money. Pictures are of course required (once it is done).
Ilene is black now but eventually I would like to "dress her up a little bit".
I narrowed my color selection down to either a lime green (great minds) or something a little more feminine. It is low on the priorities list but I think at this point I will go the girly route.
Oh and I am definitely looking forward to the cat track surprise. Something we might be seeing in March?
more updates:
heater blanket is on its way (15"x75", 220V, 3000W, Type J TC) with 8' long wires. i found a controller and SSR (from ebay). i was surprised to find an abundant number of controllers available. the price range for controller and SSR is between $50 - $150. the trick is to make sure all the parts are compatible.
the new skis pictured above skied very well. i immediately noticed how damp they were -- most likely because of the rubber layer, and also the steel and aluminum. i enjoyed the soft flex very much, and the pine seems to work well. the tight sidecut made them carve nicely, but the tails felt like they were grabby, especially after exiting from a turn. maybe i need to bevel the edges more or shift the mounting of my bindings. i have some videos of Kelvin and i at Whistler this past weekend that will post soon. oh, it was great to run into people that recognized our work! seems like the community is starting to grow!
What a stand-out pair of skis. It must have really been fun to get all of the crowd reaction to them. I, too, occasionally run into someone who asks, "Are you one of those Skibuilders dudes?".
Question for you when you have time... how do you determine where you chose your binding mount location? I'm still playing around with my general approach. I've finally made a set of riser plates that allow me to adjust fore and aft quite a bit. I'm finding that I like to be back a bit more than I generally would have predicted. I'm also finding that I like to be higher off the deck than I would have thought. I occasionally run with 15mm's under a 7TM Tour (must be a total of 35mm or more) and I find even a wide ski to be much quicker edge to edge, much easier on my legs, with much better edge hold. In all of my messing around with these things, I haven't really been able to get to a point where I experienced a grabby tail. I'm actually a little disappointed because I wanted to see if I could relate the condition to the binding location... too far forward or back. Once in awhile, when skiing on pretty hard ice, I'll get a turn where the tail doesn't release smoothly. But as soon as I get the same ski into a bit softer snow, it performs just fine, which may indicate the edge is just a little too sharp along the tail section... at least on hard ice.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to hear whether or not you get any resolution of your tail grabbiness with a little edge detune. By the way, even G-man really likes the very cool look of the tip and tail shape.
G-man: i usually match the toe-line of the binding template with the mid-point of the ski. Kelvin and i discussed this the other day, and with these new skis, we decided the "mid-point" to be half of the contact length.
Wow that is the mother of all presses! Good work! I was wondering if you have seen the press that PMGear uses and if you've considered building anything like that. From what I understand they purchased it from a place in Quebec that went belly up and did not build it themselves. I'd like to know the details about how that was built as it looks like something that would fit into what little space I have available...maybe Idris has some input on that.
Thanks for the site and I hope to be able to contribute something in the near future!
Correct. It fits into a 2ft by 8ft foot floor space + compressor.
There are lots of pics of it on the PMGear website gallery. If you have any specific questions about the beast just ask - can't help with exact dimensions as I'm 6000 miles away
a friend taught me how to weld tonight, and so i welded Kublai. good thing because after pressing the Kaweah, one of the bolts sheared. yikes!
paint will come next, followed by wiring up the heater and presto: done!
Nice looking weld, bigKam. Your friend taught you well.
G-man
i figured that would happen. typically 1 inch of weld is as strong as a 1" grade 8 bolt. there for aslong as you got good penetration then you should be quite ok with very minimal welds! remember Always weld up, not down. a vertical down weld may look peaty but you get no strength out of them. BURN IT HOT and Good luck.
Friday after work i removed the rust from the steel using a grinder with a circular steel brush. Saturday afternoon i visited Harbor Freight and picked up a $15 paint gun to work with my compressor. on my way home i visited the local paint store to find a couple colors for Kublai (oil-based paint). then i decided to paint (outside), applying first the primer; it dried within a few hours in the nice warm weather. a few hours before the sun went down i decided to appy the color coat. working fast i managed to paint all the pieces (4 I-beams, and the two end supports). this moring i woke up to find the paint had dried nicely, but a few spots needed a squirt or two. (i'm currently finishing my garage and painting the walls using leftover (orange) paint from a recent remodel of my house. since i have a lot of orange left, i decided to paint the top mold orange.) when the paint dried, it took about an hour to assemble the pieces (with two people). here are some photos -- the silicon heater (in red) is barely visible below the aluminum over the base mold. the temp controller is ready to go, so maybe this week i'll do a dry run to test everything.
That is awesome Kam!!!
It's funny because we all know the cosmetics are just that, but it is still fun to make the tools look nice. That is a different green than I was picturing but the one you choose with the yellow/orange makes the setup look professional.
Ben: i wanted lime green, but the people at the local paint store couldn't figure out how to use their computer to set up the base colors to mix me any paint -- i gave them about 10 different shades from their list and i got nothing. it was like they didn't want to mix paint for someone who owned a ski press. so instead i settled for the pre-mix "Safety Green". as for the puke (army) green i got that by mixing a few random quarts of oil-based paint. though the color is far from what i intended, in the end i'm glad the rust is gone and the steel is painted. now i can spend time on my "surprise"
.
btw, i finished the video of you and Wheezer (Tom) skiing at Snowbird. have a look: click here (8MB, *.wmv)
only if your going to share it with us
The press looks awesome though! I just put mine together....need to still add a few pieces, and I think I am going to add two more supports within the press, but it looks pretty good. I still need to put together my PID controller though...
I really like the way the top mold is colored. Give it a really cool look! Cant wait to see more skis from it.
casters arrived today, and just in time. i was surprised by how big they were (and heavy too) -- 6" diameter cast wheels. oh well, not bad for $9/each. and let's not forget, made in you know where
i received a couple PMs about the casters. i bought them from North Tool:
4" diameter cast wheels ($6.99)
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_40250_40250
6" diameter cast wheels ($8.99) -- this is what i got, but the 4" above would have been just fine.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_40254_40254
considering the weight of most presses, i would stay away from casters with plastic wheels or metal wheels with a rubber or other polymer over the outside diameter, like a tire. over time the weight of your press will deform the rubber and then pushing the press around would be like trying to push a car with square wheels -- that defeats the purpose.
search Northern Tool for "casters" and you should get at least 13 pages of wheels to choose from. some are expensive, like this gem:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_35629_35629
best of luck.
boy that really looks nice..
i must say that looks really good. congrats on finishing it.
schuss
Doesn't get much more slick than that. Great job.
G-man
earlier this week i corresponded with jason (hydrant71), asking him about the value of the spring constant for the coils he used in his press design. in lieu of a number, he left me with his secret: 13" long door springs available at Lowes or HD. armed with this information i immediately raided a local Lowes and HD for all their springs -- i acquired the needed 14 springs, $2.5/each (i cut each spring in half, giving a total of 28 springs, approx. 6" long). on my way out of one store i picked up two 6-feet long galvanized angle steel with pre-punched holes, hoping they would come in handy. i was not disappointed:
now satisfied with the mechanical system, i switched into electronics and control systems mode to finish the heater. Ebay is a nice place to shop --for about $50 i'm a proud new owner of a controller and solid state relay. i put in about $30 more to buy misc parts that include a couple switches, wires, etc. below is the assembled system. the last photo shows a test run where the controller nicely brings the temperature of the blanket to 175F. it all works like a charm!
clean, clean as a whistle. can't wait to blow up your pm inbox with
1,000 questions about controllers and ssr's this summer.
jason
sorry... i've been looking around the site... i'm thinking of building a pair soon...
whats the cattrack do? and I noticed in one of the pictures that when the hose was inflated there were lare gaps between the hose and the mold where the mold curves up... how did you make sure the ski got pressed there?
sorry if these are stupid questions...
edit: never mind- i looked around on some other thread and found the answer
hello
what the length and width of metal girder?
BigKam,
How did you secure the top mold to the top beams?
Is it hanging by the springs as is the hose and cat track?
thanks,
Matt
The metal girder is about 18" wide and around 7' long
To secure the mold, I used a two threaded rods, a few nuts, and made a securing cross member out of wood. I drilled the mold in two places (holes much larger than the rods), pounded nuts into the wood from the bottom side, then threaded the rods as shown. The cross member rested on the I-beam flanges. I hope this sketch helps:
Yes, thanks for the sketch it helped out. I was going to put some holes in my beam flanges, but your approach is better.
Thanks
Is there any possibility that you could post a scimatic of your entire control system for the heating element, including positive and negative wires, and where they all connect?
I just built a press and am trying to install the heater... yet having a little bit of a hard time with the wiring.
I believe My control components are very similar to yours.
