yesterday i man came into the shop needing some logo designs, we were talking about what kind of work he does and he develops custom parts for companies like gm, toyota, john deer…list goes on. he said they will call him and tell him what they need and what it needs to do and he will make a prototype. so i segwayed into working on gb props and some of the stuff i had been racking my brain on aka a fully working barrel extension that would extend and retract with very minimal movement and space. befor he left he had a few ideas drawn on a piece of paper. he said if i could get him ref pics and blue prints and a cad drawing it would really help. i got him everything but a cad drawing, does anyone out there have one. i am a graphic artist but havent used cad in like 10 years and i know someone out there knows it, hopefully. if he gets it figured out which i think he has made it a personal goal at this point it would be awsome.
if anyone out there has anything that would help that would be great.
im really hoping there will be some good intrest in this because he can make as many as we want.
he will be back from mexico on friday so i have a few days to get stuff together.
I work for a CAD company and I’m working up a 3D parametric assembly of a proton pack off of Stephan’s plans, but I haven’t gotten around to working on the gun yet…
Once I’m done, I’ll export it as a STEP or IGES file so that everyone can enjoy.
Don’t hold your breath though. I’m working on it little by little in my “spare” time, as if I have any…
i talked to him yesterday and since he is doing this for free it will be a little slow going. but he is still working on it just not much room in a gun for a lot of stuff with a light kit.
Yes, crazy expensive (decent used car expensive) but I plan to do it, not in the near future mind you but part by part over time as the opportunities arise…
What if you CNCed pack shell bucks and eBayed them? That would distribute your cost throughout the community and maybe make you a little money on the side? I think a CNC router is around $7500, right? You could probably entice people into buying a buck for $120 or so. So, you’d have to mill 63 pack shell bucks to pay for the mill. Maybe 75 with lumber cost factored in. Isn’t AutoCAD a couple hundred dollars, too?
What is the demand for pack shells? What would be the demand for perfectly canon bucks? If one knew that, one could think realistically about possibly buying one of those machines. It might be more realistic to get someone you know who had the machine for regular purposes and get them to upload the CAD pack into the computer and mill you out a buck or two. I got a brother-in-law who owns a custom millwork shop, but I can’t get him to do anything for me. He has a hard time just keeping up with regular customers. He doesn’t have a CNC mill, but someone in similar circumstance . . .
1st you can’t CNC a pack on a 3 axis router completely, the best you could do is a stereo lithography layer up of a pack cut on the router, and there would be no crisp inside corners as routers can’t cut them… Then all the layers would need to be assembled… Most routers don’t have much up/down axis travel, and even if they did tool stability will be an issue because of the depth of some of the parts… You could reposition parts and gain the other axises but it would drastically increase labor hours and time…
2nd it take hours upon hours to CNC stuff, selling for $120 a shell is unrealistic when you will probably have 12 hours (just a rough guess) of machine time in just making the parts out of wood and probably $30-60 in wood…
Autocad is about $2500 for a legit personal use copy…
In the end realistically you are probably looking at close to 150 units @ $120 to even come close to just paying for the tools, and that still leaves you with nothing for your time…
Isn’t gonna happen as there are no canon plans…
FYI there have been some people that have CNC routered out packs, it can and will be done but it’s not cost effective for a production type run…
For me when I talk CNC I’m talking a 5 axis CNC mill and starting with blocks of billet aluminum… Machines that cost in excess of a quarter million dollars…
uh, that sounds a little pricey for a unique fixer-upper opportunity. : P
I guess you would have to “farm” out to other avenues, like do Stormtrooper Armor, Cylon outfits, etc, to make it worthwhile (I’m talking about the CNC that Ryan mentioned, not the CNC mega-laser-awesome that Flynn was talking about) Doing it for just GB’s probably wouldn’t be worth it for a whole pack, but maybe parts…
