X-Carve for Live Steaming

X-Carve
1

Hi,
I am new to CNC and Live Steaming. Has anybody experience with milling live steam parts with X-Carve? I am looking for a single machine to do both wood work and mill MS/aluminum parts. Am I asking for too much?

Thanks
McNeer

2

A lot of users here are milling aluminium successfully but mild steel (MS?) would be beyond the capabilities of the X-Carve, it’s just not rigid enough.

3

What is Live Steaming? Something related to water vapor, or just a typo (Live STREAMING)?

4

There’s a video on youtube where someone “mills” mild steel with the XCarve. I’m sure you can do it if you have the right bits and go slowly enough. I plan on trying to mill steel and even titanium, but I’m working through aluminum until I get my machine functioning well.

5

McNeer is referring to building model steam engines or model steam locomotives. Aluminum 2.5D parts are doable with a modified X-Carve. Steel would be very problematic. As been pointed out even a moded machine would not really be as ridged as needed for machining steel parts.
Building steam engines will also require a metal lathe and drill press.

Dave
Ariel, WA

6

I live steam all the time…pretty much just a white screen on youtube lol

7

Thanks Geoff. I’ll keep an eye on the mods to the MS milling.

Regards

McNeer

8

@EvannDalton Hi. Thanks for pointing to YouTube. :grinning: BTW as @DavidSohlstrom said it’s the science and art of steam railroad scale modelling for the outdoor. It takes years to make a locomotive as mostly amateurs do it in their spare time. So I was looking for means to cut down this time using CNCs.

McNeer

9

Thanks Dave for your to the point reply.

Regards

McNeer

10

McNeer

I don’t know what scale you plan on building in. Your machining needs will very a lot depending on scale. A 7.25" or 7.5" scale loco will take a lot more than a G1 scale loco.

Here is a link to a 1/32 scale RC model stern wheeler that Mike Jones built that I designed, built and installed the steam engines in. The engines are 5/8" bore and 2" stroke. The engines took close to 3 years to complete and the model close to 6 years total time.
If you jump to page 118 you will see a short video of the vessel on the test pond at my house the first time we ran it on water.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1497645

You can also see lots of photos of the engines as they were being built and the CNC setups I used.
They were not done on an X-Carve but rather a Tormach 770 CNC milling machine and a couple of metal lathes.

Dave
Ariel, WA

11

I am totally confused you are using the x-carve to build a model locomotive?

12

Thanks Dave. I’ll take a look. I was following chaski.org forums and people had some reservations about Tormach mills. But I don’t care much about speed as long as the job gets done within required tolerances.

I am trying to build a 7.5" gauge Penn A3 Switcher from Kozo Hiraoka’s drawings, as it’s the simple loco to start with.

Regards

McNeer

13

@EvannDalton at this time I am just exploring some budget options for CNC milling and since I love open source, a quick search got me to the Inventables. But that’s what I am trying to do. Build a 7.5" gauge coal fired steam locomotive.

Regards

McNeer

14

of very nice i am interested with your project let me know how it turns out

15

McNeer

In Kono Hiraoka’s style of building as you know he does a lot of fabrication of parts and aims his builds at a person that has only manual machine tools.

Here is a link to an A3 build were the builder has several photos of the A3 tender as he builds it. http://livesteam.proboards.com/thread/886/first-timer-on-a3

Me being a retired machinist and having both manual and CNC machines I have a real gut feeling that an X-Carve will not be that much use in building an A3.

Do you have any manual machine tools or are you starting from scratch.

Any time a machine is talked about on a forum there are people that have negative thoughts on the subject. The Tormach line of CNC machines were designed with the light industrial and hobby user in mind. There are thousands of machines out there in shops all over the world. I have friends in New Zealand that just bought a 1100 and had it shipped to NZ. They are very happy with the machine.

Where in the world are you located. I live is SW Washington state.

Dave
Ariel, WA

16

Dave,
Hi. Preston looks awesome. Hope someday I might be able to do similar work.

Well I am actually starting from scratch. I only have small hand tools. So yes I have to build my shop from scratch. I am from True North AKA Canada, actually from a suburb of Toronto. I am planning to join GHLS club for Live Steaming. Hopefully may get some pointers from some locals here.

Little off topic. Once I drove from Seatac to Olympia, got a headache from driving on your WA rough roads.

Good luck with your Preston project.

Regards

McNeer

17

McNeer

The concrete highways up in that area are the pits. I have discovered that the wheel base on my dodge truck is the same length as the seams and really make my ride rough.

May I make a suggestion. Get your self a low cost metal lathe and a low cost manual milling machine. Then get a casting kit for a stationary steam engine and build that before you jump into a A3.

Going from ground zero to an A3 is a huge step.

Dave
Ariel, WA

18

Dave,
Hi. Thanks for your suggestion. BTW I am tech savvy with both mechanical engineering and IT since I studied to be a B.Eng and have been in IT as a programmer/developer from past two decades. Though DIY casting(ferrous metals) is bit difficult.

Regards

McNeer