Now that I have the ability to machine metal parts, I figure a good first project would be an aluminum housing for the Nixie clock I built. But I'd better practice in wood first
Man, hacksawing through this much metal is a lot of work. And hard to keep straight
That's a pretty haggard cut
Fortunately, I can clean it up on the mill (barely the head is all the way at the top of its travel here. Already I'm running into the limits of this little machine)
A nice flat surface starting to emerge
Two sides squared
All six sides are now flat and parallel (and you can tell I got better at producing a nice surface finish between the first side, on the front, and the last one, on top)
Practicing using layout fluid
Scribed lines are so much more visible through this stuff
The bottom of the housing marked out
What pretty swarf
Using a drill to remove most of the material
Two hours later, time to take a break
A few more hours' work. That's enough for one day
Finished at last! That was tedious
Well, I guess I'm not done, huh. Now to remove the rest of the metal. How about plunging with an endmill?
That didn't work very well, but pliers worked surprisingly well
A pile of aluminum chips. If I learn to cast aluminum, I guess I could reuse all of this rather than throwing it away
Now that's looking more like a cavity
Cleaning up the bottom -- this IS a job better suited to an endmill
Looking flatter
Taking a break from working on the bottom to clean up the sides
At last the inside cavity is done
Milling the bevelled edges
Away it goes
Holes for the Nixie tubes drilled and bored out to size
Cutting out the sheet metal bottom panel on the bandsaw
Drilling the screw holes
Tapping a thread into the screwholes
Just about finished!
Counterbored hole in the back for the A/C adapter (the one thing left to do is to learn to finish the metal to get rid of the machining marks)
The bottom attached with rubber feet installed
Done! (Or close enough for now)
