Shaft Machine: in production

We have the shaft machine dialed in and are producing carbon fiber shafts.
They are wound on a mandril and have an ID of 1 inch.  The wall varies from 1/16 to 3/32nds depending on the stiffness we are looking for.
They are very light and have a glossy or semi gloss finish.
Here are some images of the machine and the process...

Carbon Fiber Tow

Break Time!  We took off a couple of hours and went out on Creve Coeur lake with Ingo and Tiny.

Shaft Machine: Wiring

Renaissance man, Jonathan W.  solved a vexing issue with the Shaft Machine yesterday.  The motor powering the unit is a Dayton gear motor.  It had 5 wires coming out of it.  I don't know what to do with that.
I had it working but only when I plugged it in and started it spinning.
Jonathan knows his electronics and picked up the right capacitor and parts and quickly got it functioning correctly.
It now has forward and reverse (by switch) !
He was also able to check its rotation speed with a device.  The mandril is spinning at 36 rpm and the bobbin shaft is spinning at 12 rpm.

He also tested the rpms of the Silver band saw.  With the sheave we installed, it has a blade speed of 1861 feet per minute.
Good to know.

We spun another test shaft of about three feet in length.  All is well.
This weekend we will spin our first full length carbon fiber shaft for testing.

Shaft Machine !

We got a big order for both paddle boards and paddles.  While we are preparing the molds and waiting on supply deliveries, I thought it would be a good time to visit Charlie at Industrial Machine Sales.
Jonathan W. and I drove up to Alton IL. to see if we could get the shaft machine project moving forward.
Charlie was happy to help and spent 5 hours walking us through the building of the machine.
He used a lathe to cut some specialized parts we needed and had us running around his 11000 foot shop bringing him items.
After cutting various sizes of bar stock, plate metal and de-burring all the edges, we got the device pretty close to finished.
Once we retuned to St. Louis, I got the pieces mounted on my steel strong-back  (heavy steel angle iron).
The timing was good because the Carbon Fiber tow arrived today.
We are super excited about the prospects of being able to buy the raw CF tow and spin our own shafts.
Here are photos of the day with Charlie.
All Photos courtesy of Jonathan Wilmoth.

I thought our 32 inch Silver was a big band saw.  Charlie's Grob band saw (Made in Wisconsin) is a monster.
It makes him look like a Oompa Loompa. 

Lathe work

Steel band saw cutting plate

Charlie has a nice Lincoln mig welder.

Jon is distracted by something shiny.

Give me that old time Machinist

Charlie C. at Industrial Machine Sales in Alton, ILL. is on the job.
We spent several hours coming through his parts bins a few weeks ago to come up with items needed to fabricate the slickest shaft machine ever.  His system of organization is chaotic but he found some great parts.
He was unwilling to sell me these parts though, unless I hired him to build it.  He really wanted to do this so how could I say no.
Last Friday, Ingo and I played hooky and drove up to see him.  We delivered some missing pillow block bearings and gave him the latest specs we needed from the machine.
He gave us a brief lesson on good machining and he was off to the races.
In a few weeks we should be spinning shafts.