After work today I went into the shop and worked on making the fuselage side fuel tank brackets.
A couple days ago I finished drawing the brackets and put the program in the CNC so that it is ready to go. Tonight was establishing the proper set up in the mill and machining the parts. The set-up was fairly straight forward only on the side that has an angle I needed to be certain that the part be held in such a way that I could mill about 1.25 inches deep for the way the part is made on that end.
Having the set-up complete it was just a matter of allowing the mill and program to cut the parts. They cut pretty quick with one rough and one finish cut....about 30 minutes each. The mill puts nice corner radii on the places in accordance to Vans prints and the mirroring function on the CNC did a great job of making the left and right hand parts.
Even with the programming time I am not sure they could have been done any better or faster by hand.....especially with the small wimpy band saw I have that needs a new blade and stalls out on thicker aluminum parts. Now for the other side to be programmed and completed.
