[ Classes & Workshops ] CDMA Metalsmithing & Jewelry Arts School
www.CustomDesignMetalArts.com
Specializing in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Instruction. Florida.
Bill Roberts, Owner and Operator of Custom Design Metal Arts, with over
20 years, full time, experience in decorative metalwork offers: One on
One Classes and Workshops. The Shop offers one day, three day and
weekly classes, intensive workshops and demonstrations as well as
private tutoring. All levels welcome. Open year round. Bill is
available to teach workshops and classes at others Schools in the
United States and abroad.
For Scheduling & Info... please contact:
Bill Roberts, Ornamental Metalsmith
Custom Design Metal Arts
3740 NE 40th PL # D
Ocala, Florida 34479
Phone (352) 351-5512
Website: http://www.customdesignmetalarts.com
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BEGINNING BLACKSMITHING WORKSHOP:
No Experience necessary. Just the desire to learn. This class will
teach the basics of blacksmithing. Including... drawing out, upsetting,
twisting, bending, fullering, punching, and cutting. It will also cover
forging dynamics, safety and three H's. At the end of this class you
will have an understanding and ability to use these basics. And will
have accomplished this by completing three projects. You will make a
key fob with leaf, a letter opener and a J hook. Completing these three
projects are the goal.... it's possible to complete more projects
depending on the individual.
Date: October 21, 2006.
Times: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (with a break for lunch)
Location: 3740 NE 40th PL # D. Ocala, Florida 34479
Cost: $150.00
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INTERMEDIATE BLACKSMITHING WORKSHOP:
Requires knowledge of the basics, and some forging experience. This
class takes the basic knowledge and experience to the next level. The
goal is to make either a fireplace set, a candelabra or a similar
project. Using all the basic forging techniques in the beginning class.
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ADVANCED BLACKSMITHING WORKSHOP:
Requires the completion of an intermediate class and at least a year
forging experience. And an approved design for the class project that
can be completed in a week. This class is structured towards the
individuals needs and goals.
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>From design inspiration to finished artwork:
http://www.customdesignmetalarts.com/elevator.0.html
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JEWELRY CLASSES & WORKSHOPS:
Other Classes:
-- In Forged, Fabricated and Cast Jewelry,
-- Lost Wax Casting,
-- Wax Design and Carving,
-- Mold Making, among others.
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"The only thing that I enjoy as much as using these processes....is
teaching them to others." Bill Roberts.
Andrew Molinaro
I took a class from Valentin. i saw his link on your web site and he
mentioned a metal worker from Florida. Great guy. Great class. It helped
me greatly on performing a copper door commision near manhatten. Go to my
page to see it www.artisansoftheanvil.com/gallery
I like the Brandt style sculpture as well as the traditional english
door grills.
Give me a mail if you want to talk methid.
Andrew in PA
Chilla
Sounds pretty good, although the commute for me would be a bit tough :-(
Charles
Prometheus
cutter. The metalworking group has pretty much been dead every time
I've looked at it, so this is the next closest one.
Basically, I'm just having trouble with a specific job at work- I've
never run across anything I haven't been able to dial in before, but
this one is a doozy.
What I'm trying to do is cut a number of holes and a couple of
octagonal openings in a piece of 6063 T5 aluminum tubing that is 3" x
6" with a .125" wall. Seems like it should be simple enough, but the
laser loses the cut really frequently, and is really sloppy, even when
slowed down to as little as 4 inches per minute.
I spent a few hours tonight running every setting up and down through
almost the entire range of the machine, and nothing seemed to work.
Even a bad cut might do if it had to be that way, but with the
constant loss of the cut, it would take a month to cut a job that
should only take a couple of hours.
I've run through all the basic tune-ups, cleaning the lens, centering
the nozzle, adjusting the z-ht sensor, and adjusting every relevent
setting in the cut condition. .125" 6061 can be a PITA sometimes, but
it always cuts- unlike this stuff.
So, what I'm looking for, if anyone happens to have any suggestions,
are cut conditions for 6063 tubing, .125" wall, for an Amada Pulsar
1212NT. The best I could come up with was to jack the power to 3000,
lower the frequency to 300, set the duty to 100%, and lower the fly
height to .0100. It still didn't work for crap, or else I wouldn't be
asking here, but it was better than any other combination I tried.
In lieu of cutting conditions, any information on how 6063 differs
from 6061 might be helpful so that I can try to get a handle on which
way things need to be adjusted.
It's a long shot, I know- but I figure someone here *might* have done
this before, and have a good handle on the material. If I were making
the call, I'd send the sucker out for outside milling, but I suspect
that that is not going to fly. This machine has done this job before
in the past, not without a difficult setup, but now it doesn't seem to
be able to do it in any circumstance.
Or maybe it was just a bad night. It happens.
Trevor Jones
Can't help with the cut. Sorry.
Wondering which metalworking group you were looking at.
rec.crafts.metalworking is a pretty busy group.
alt.rec.crafts.metalworking (or is it alt.crafts.metalworking?) was, I
think, started by someone that had a tantrum after being ignored on rcm,
and get's little traffic.
You might ask on the PracticalMachinist forum. There is a EDM cutting
forum there as welll as a welding one. Lot's of the guys there run
commercial shops.
Cheers
Trevor Jones
theChas.
I just wondering if the square tube could possibly be reflecting energy back
into your work area.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
spaco
see much difference between the two. Have you run this same size
tubing well using 6061? It may be the tubing and the reflection,
having a shinier inside than mild steel might have. As you well know,
the laser has a really focused beam, (we used to produce a beam only 7
microns in diameter) so any reflected energy is going to come right back
to the cut zone. Maybe try halving the energy?
Pete Stanaitis
-------------------
Prometheus
wrote:
>I tralked to a guy who seems to know a bit about aluminum and he doesn't
>see much difference between the two. Have you run this same size
>tubing well using 6061? It may be the tubing and the reflection,
>having a shinier inside than mild steel might have. As you well know,
>the laser has a really focused beam, (we used to produce a beam only 7
>microns in diameter) so any reflected energy is going to come right back
>to the cut zone. Maybe try halving the energy?
Nope- this is more or less the only job we run using tubing like this-
though we do a number of jobs that involve setting steel parts on
raised jigs after brake and weld. Aluminum is a challenging material
on our particular laser cutter in the best of cases, so it is more
often punched or milled- and .125" is getting pretty close to the
machine's capacity with the material, which always makes setup
difficult.
As far as halving the energy does, I did try a number of settings in a
controlled set of steps, especially with the power and frequency. I
found that any power level below 1500 caused the beam to be completely
ineffective (not even etching the surface) and any frequency above
about 800 caused the machine to make only a partial cut with a very
rough surface. Increasing the feed rate made for a longer effective
cut time, but it was not cutting through, just damaging the surface.
I had considered that the tube shape itself may be the problem as
well, though I don't know that reflection is the issue. When cutting,
the air coming from each end is similar in temperature to the heat
generated by an oil-fueled furnace. I know that aluminum is excellent
at dissapating heat, but what I am not sure of is whether increasing
the overall temperature of the material increases or decreases this
property. If it is the former, it would seem (and this would explain
the effect I observed) that after the laser injects a certain amount
of heat energy into the material, the material is able to dissapate
the focused heat quickly enough that the laser has no real effect on
it.
Going off that theory, I did try blowing compressed air through the
tube while running the machine, but it was not enough to signifigantly
lower the temperature. It's hard to know if this is really the
problem, as we are assisiting the beam with a fairly intense stream of
compressed nitrogen, which should be adquate to cool the area
surrounding the beam.
I will try to see if reflection is the issue, though- perhaps I can
slide a plate of pickled steel inside the tube to see if that makes a
difference. It'd be nice to use tape or cardboard to really make sure
that there isn't a reflection issue, but there is an obvious fire
hazard there. I also wanted to try using the oxygen as an assist gas,
to see if it would oxidize the aluminum and blow it out, but burning
aluminum is not something I want to deal with, especially when it is
in close proximity to some very expensive optics!
At any rate, I contacted Amada to see if they had any suggestions, and
it's a good bet the daytime engineer did the same, so hopefully they
can come up with some suggestions. We did recently turn the power
capacity of the machine down, as it was generating enough power to
defeat the shutter, and that may have something to do with this
newfound problem. It might be a case where it has to be turned back
up, and the shop will just have to bite the bullet and purchase a new
shutter (it's likely that the original was damaged in any case, since
it was allowing laser radiation to leak.)