Done / Completed Metal fifth element ZF-1 upgrade kit for Jake's kit

It's better to take your time and deliver a quality product that you are proud of than to rush and put out a product you are satisficed with.
 
hey there,
I took a few pics of what I tried to do quickly tonight to finish the day as it is the smallest detail possible on that run I think, but I just couldn't supply something that wasn't completely accurate, so I had to do it! :)

the slot in the screw at the bottom of the clippard assembly, as visible on that ref:
43636-zf1_3.jpg


I searched hard on my free time to find a job lot of clippard parts for the cheapest possible price for you guys, especially for the non US people on that run that would have more trouble sourcing them. I managed to find a nice lot of 11 of the MPA-3 tubes and it came with a lot of the small L fittings that go under it on the ZF-1, but they didn't come with the special screw to attach them.
the story goes on when I tried to source the special type of small 10-32 bolt for a reasonable price and ended up finding a nice lot in France. after 3 weeks, the screws were never sent and the seller was never responding to my enquiries. I ended up filling an ebay claim and the guy finally showed up and said, "oh yeah, sorry, I wasn't there, here is you money back, I'm closing my ebay account anyways". ok... this is just one of several orders that I never received for that project, crazy times!
so, I sourced some new ones from Germany and they finally showed up this week. Obviously, they didn't have the slot in the head so I had to find a way to do it. that is what I did tonight.

Sorry, as always, I talk a lot, but I wanted to find a good deal on those parts and supply the kits as drop in screen-accurate replacement, but those parts were a lot more trouble than anticipated, that will all be counted on my "free time" for you guys, but just wanted to let everyone know how it actually went ;-)

SO, I decided to give a try to the slots with... the slitting saw, logical you say.
so here we go!
DSC04619.JPG

worked beautifuly:
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the thing is, this is A2 stainless steel, and it only worked beautifuly for 8 screws, after that, the blade starting hissing like crazy and here is the result, RIP blade:
DSC04623.JPG

the "angles" you see are not supposed to be here, the end of the teeth is normaly 90° on the full thickness... oh well! I'll do the last 3 with a guitar nut slot file I think :)
luckily I have a second blade, because that's the blade I need to slot all the rocket tubes!
cheers guys
 
Hello guys,
here are a few updates :)

first off, the lamp tips are now adjusted and press fitted to the maglite :)
As you can see, they are both fitted at a different depth, just like the original flame thrower version that I have been following since the start of this project.
DSC04631.JPG

ref:
flame_trower_10.jpg


and, the ice cube system parts are finished, the 8 holes in the front are done and the front part has been adjusted and heat/cold fitted to the body part. fun time consuming stuff!
DSC04627.JPG


someone asked before how they assemble together, so, the front and body are assembled with hot (front) and cold (body) and are together definitely. the two other parts are assembled together with the body with a single M4 screw:
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not to worry about it too much though as they will all be delivered to you already assembled :)
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I'm making good progress on the new added part, the big rectangle holding both maglites and should be posting about that tomorrow evening I think :) cheers
 
yeah it's not actually "difficult". just a lot of different opperations to do, I think 19 + 4 threaded holes in the back. I did 12 of them and just ****** up one on the last step tonight sadly
 
I did it guys! I did it! :)

the curve in the front of the torches support cube.

well, coming back to what we were discussing last night, this was a more difficult opperation, with a lot of carefull planning.

After I figured out an idea to make this happen, I calculated in my 3D software that I could do the 4cm diameter curve on that part with my 25mm diameter surfacing tool if I angled it to 15°, as so:
torch_support_tool.jpg


the piece itself also had to be at the 62° angle that the front is cut to, to make that happen I had to mill another angled wedge to secure the piece in the mill vice.

on top of that, since that curve stops at 2.6mm from the back edge, there are two very very close parallel lines visible in the front of that part, the slightest mis-alignment would be very visible here. this means I had to align each piece perfectly to my mill cross table each time. To do that, I had to build a small support system for my dial test indicator in order to have it already installed each time without having to do too many opperations each time or even change the tool in the mill's chuck.

here we go, works pretty well :) :
DSC04634.JPG


this being done, the piece is put in the vice as carefully as possible on the 62° wedge to make sure that the top will be perfectly flat as this would also break the paralelism of the two lines. then i use the dial indicator to make sure the piece is perfectly straight when I move the cross table:
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and here is the result, the opperation itself is pretty quick, around 1 or 2 minutes of work, but the planning for that took half a day, and the preparation and alignment of each piece is pretty time consuming:
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BUT, this is so cool!
here you go:
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still have one last OP to do to clean the lage front face that is still raw here, but couldn't resist a little mock up :) :) :)
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I hope you guys will like it :)
cheers
 
Hello guys,

very difficult part today, the concave cradle on the rocket support piece. this one I can't do the same way I did the torches support, so I had to figure out another more complex way.

I'm using my rotating table for that, and I had to turn a small piece to center my parts in the correct position for the 32mm diameter curve:
DSC04640.JPG


I use this to put the part to be milled against, like so, sorry worst photo ever!
DSC04645.JPG


then it has to be all secured to the table, which is not fun as I am missing a few items to do that properly and have to fight with regular M6 screws and it's pretty annoying! I'll have to do an umpteenth tool order tonight because I also need a fly cutter to clean the large face of the torches support.
anyways, back to attaching the part on the table, it has to be very precise so the radius and position are correct, pretty time consuming:
DSC04641.JPG


and here is the result:
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DSC04644.JPG

cheers guys
 
You truly are the Masamune of Metal:

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...and like him, I hate you. Over talented butthead.

I am seriously running out of ways to insult and compliment you.

Kinda why I stopped posting responses to Geeks amazing work. How many ways can you say, awesome, wow, I am so jealous.

At one point I even looked up synonyms and I had used most of them.

Seriously amazing. I can not wait to get all these pieces.
 
These really are works of art. Beautiful!!!
thank you so much Jake :) I'm currently looking at my tool supplier to order a Fly cutter to have the large face of those really clean.
I have only a 25mm surfacing tool so far, that I really love, but I tried to surface this part with it in 3 times, on each side of the holes in the front, but I felt it wasn't good enough :)
 
eethan , I can't thank you enough for sharing your process along the way. It's like we're inside your brains! hehe. It's pretty incredible seeing the solutions you come up with for puzzles along the way. Thank you for sharing!
 
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