qcfoundry
Sr Member
Well, the chickens have come home to roost.
The meeting with the machinist went well. The completed chicken seen above is actually the machinist's...he made one for himself.
I have 12 chicken kits (plus my own) waiting to find a home.
I had ideally thought I would sit with the machinist and put every armature together. That was a little stupid. It felt like the nervous you get when you are at a model contest and you are trying to set up your model. I got the shakes when I was trying to get the screws in. But after a few you start to realize you're not dealing with plastic and the allen wrenches, screws and aluminum are a lot tougher than you may realize.
There are several .. "observations":
-It's a lot smaller than I anticipated. (thats NOT what she said). I get this often being a structural engineer...working with drawings and working with dimensions properly...but when you're working in a virtual world and don't have items in your hand. It always blows me away when I finally see a building I design (usually feels bigger in real life)...and this seemed smaller than what I had envisioned
-The armature is very much like a resin kit. It has little bugs that need to be cleaned up.
-Most of the tap holes have a little spur that can easily be knocked off with a fine metal file ...or perhaps even a metal finger nail file.
-The faces of the pieces that were cut by the EDM have a slightly pebbled appearance, but rest assured, they are quite smooth.
-The S.05a screws that tie the "fork" of the middle leg to the main middle leg were "hand" shortened. The screws that were available were either slightly too long or too short to properly work. These screws are a little tougher to get started..but once they do, they bite/grab like the rest. I recommend trying those screws in the tapped hole WITHOUT the other secured pieces just to get the threads adjusted.
-The ankles were not produced correctly. The machinist forgot the added the vertical chamfers on each corner. He took those back and assured me that he would have them in the mail by Monday morning.
-Some of the fits are VERY tight. Don't be afraid to push them in, unless its a very small thin piece. The lateral hip bone and its joints were a little problematic with my armature, however several swipes with the file wore away the correct material. Just take your time. Sand a little, check, then repeat if needed. Some of the fits are so tight and work nicely that way. My lateral hip bone joint back into chasis is nice and snug (even before the screw is tightened). This def'ly helps when trying to pose the armatures.
-The new joint we engineered for the ankle works very nicely. It feels a little weird cause there is a tad bit of slack/wobble (where everything is dead tight). This wobble is due to the loose inserted pin dropped blindly into the ankle is fairly smaller than the hole in the ankle pin. This was done to assure that the pin could easily be removed. Since this pin is undersized for its hole, the pin is allowed to rotate freely about 2 degrees? Nothing to worry about.
-I'm quite pleased with the back tendons. The upper piece was made of spring steel and stays nice and tight to the lower tendon. The thicknesses of both of the tendons look appropriate. I have yet to attempt to execute the subtle bend of the lower tendon (which each owner will have to do himself,...sorry, but this was a bit difficult for the machinist to nail, and felt each person could bend as they please).
-I would like to keep the armatures for maybe one extra week. Sorry. I just want to go through each person's bag o'goodies and literal take a count and KNOW that each person has all of their bits and pieces. I also want to fully assemble mine and feel totally confident that there are NO bugs with the armature as a whole, that I would want to send it/them back to the machinist. He didn't test all of the screws, holes, taps. He simply put his together (in a slightly wrong orientation, lol). Anyway, I still need to wait for the machinist to get the ankles back to me.
-The S.03b screw looks pretty good, imo. Another reason for me to keep the armatures is so that I may go down to lowes and pick up some washers that seem appropriate for this screw, which the machinist didn't provide upon my instructions.
Some more pictures:
I did jokingly, yet seriously, ask the machinist if he'd be up for another run of these, should the community have the interest. He said yes. He explained that he actually lost on this project. He didn't properly figure the correct time for set-up of each of the elements. Some of the pieces (like the lower tendon) took a bit of creativity. It would seem that the next batch may be somewhat more expensive this this one was (if he lost), however on the other hand, he KNOWS the set-up for each one, ...he's had his practice run...perhaps it would be cheaper (I didn't ask). Also, he made one for himself, SOOO...if just one person is super motivated, he may part from it at the right price (i presume).
I probably forgot something...so please bring the the questions/comments
The meeting with the machinist went well. The completed chicken seen above is actually the machinist's...he made one for himself.
I have 12 chicken kits (plus my own) waiting to find a home.
I had ideally thought I would sit with the machinist and put every armature together. That was a little stupid. It felt like the nervous you get when you are at a model contest and you are trying to set up your model. I got the shakes when I was trying to get the screws in. But after a few you start to realize you're not dealing with plastic and the allen wrenches, screws and aluminum are a lot tougher than you may realize.
There are several .. "observations":
-It's a lot smaller than I anticipated. (thats NOT what she said). I get this often being a structural engineer...working with drawings and working with dimensions properly...but when you're working in a virtual world and don't have items in your hand. It always blows me away when I finally see a building I design (usually feels bigger in real life)...and this seemed smaller than what I had envisioned
-The armature is very much like a resin kit. It has little bugs that need to be cleaned up.
-Most of the tap holes have a little spur that can easily be knocked off with a fine metal file ...or perhaps even a metal finger nail file.
-The faces of the pieces that were cut by the EDM have a slightly pebbled appearance, but rest assured, they are quite smooth.
-The S.05a screws that tie the "fork" of the middle leg to the main middle leg were "hand" shortened. The screws that were available were either slightly too long or too short to properly work. These screws are a little tougher to get started..but once they do, they bite/grab like the rest. I recommend trying those screws in the tapped hole WITHOUT the other secured pieces just to get the threads adjusted.
-The ankles were not produced correctly. The machinist forgot the added the vertical chamfers on each corner. He took those back and assured me that he would have them in the mail by Monday morning.
-Some of the fits are VERY tight. Don't be afraid to push them in, unless its a very small thin piece. The lateral hip bone and its joints were a little problematic with my armature, however several swipes with the file wore away the correct material. Just take your time. Sand a little, check, then repeat if needed. Some of the fits are so tight and work nicely that way. My lateral hip bone joint back into chasis is nice and snug (even before the screw is tightened). This def'ly helps when trying to pose the armatures.
-The new joint we engineered for the ankle works very nicely. It feels a little weird cause there is a tad bit of slack/wobble (where everything is dead tight). This wobble is due to the loose inserted pin dropped blindly into the ankle is fairly smaller than the hole in the ankle pin. This was done to assure that the pin could easily be removed. Since this pin is undersized for its hole, the pin is allowed to rotate freely about 2 degrees? Nothing to worry about.
-I'm quite pleased with the back tendons. The upper piece was made of spring steel and stays nice and tight to the lower tendon. The thicknesses of both of the tendons look appropriate. I have yet to attempt to execute the subtle bend of the lower tendon (which each owner will have to do himself,...sorry, but this was a bit difficult for the machinist to nail, and felt each person could bend as they please).
-I would like to keep the armatures for maybe one extra week. Sorry. I just want to go through each person's bag o'goodies and literal take a count and KNOW that each person has all of their bits and pieces. I also want to fully assemble mine and feel totally confident that there are NO bugs with the armature as a whole, that I would want to send it/them back to the machinist. He didn't test all of the screws, holes, taps. He simply put his together (in a slightly wrong orientation, lol). Anyway, I still need to wait for the machinist to get the ankles back to me.
-The S.03b screw looks pretty good, imo. Another reason for me to keep the armatures is so that I may go down to lowes and pick up some washers that seem appropriate for this screw, which the machinist didn't provide upon my instructions.
Some more pictures:
I did jokingly, yet seriously, ask the machinist if he'd be up for another run of these, should the community have the interest. He said yes. He explained that he actually lost on this project. He didn't properly figure the correct time for set-up of each of the elements. Some of the pieces (like the lower tendon) took a bit of creativity. It would seem that the next batch may be somewhat more expensive this this one was (if he lost), however on the other hand, he KNOWS the set-up for each one, ...he's had his practice run...perhaps it would be cheaper (I didn't ask). Also, he made one for himself, SOOO...if just one person is super motivated, he may part from it at the right price (i presume).
I probably forgot something...so please bring the the questions/comments
