Hans

hey scalliwag, will you pm me your email addy I got a few ideas of my own I'd like to bounce off of yoy to see what you think.
Ryan

vid looks good btw

Scalliwag

Heck I can post it here scalliwag@scalliwag.com As long as people point out who they are on the forum in an email it helps me know who I am talking to.
Last night David and I shut the lights off in the shop and fired it up.
It was like the 4th of July

wanklin

iTrader: (2)

did anyone else catch this PUN? nice one Mike.
"just when you think a thread is dead ... it sparks (literally ) back into life."

SnowmanSteiner

Every time Scalli talks about a new idea I get excited. No not like that you perv. Seriously though, sometimes I wish I could get inside your head just to see how things work and how you go about solving and working through problems. Amazing.

- Steiner

Scalliwag

My Dad always told me if my brain was in a bird it would fly backwards So you won't find much there I'm afraid

Scalliwag

Hey, who wants to see the "Steiner-Boogie"? Here ya go

Scalliwag

Okay guys I got home today and there was something besides my 4 ladies and dog waiting for me
Hewy was right that the box was damaged but the spool and wire were not harmed at all. I still can't believe he gave that to me an d paid the shipping. That is an expensive roll of wire if you bought it.
Right off the bat I had to get it open and feel the wire. For you MIG welders out there that have welded with big wire (like 1/16" diameter) you know that hard wire that big is pretty stiff ****. Fluxcore bends easier and it feels much closer to this wire. But it still feels a lot different. It almost feels almost like a bread wrapper. It feels almost like plastic weedeater line.
So it will be interesting to light this stuff up. I am not going to the shop tonight. Hopefully my rebuild kit for the compressor come in tomorrow.

SnowmanSteiner

Hey I can dance! I can't wait to see what the wire looks like and what the differences are in the way it sprays, coats, etc.

- Steiner

Hans

hey scalli
you lucky dog, you better send that man a christmas card ;p
weedeater line huh, shouldn't be all that hard to push through, althought I have a feeling if you arent clearance correctly you are going to see a lot of the coating scrape off; like on my mig that a friend borrowed and cranked down the wire feed roller and it peeled off the copper coating on the wire it was so tight, but as he said he stopped it from slipping

I have a Q what amprage are you running the tungstens at?
also what kind of air pressure are you using? man your making me jealous, How in the world do you juggle your hobby with your wife, come on I gotta find out.

Scalliwag

Haha! People are funny as hell about stuff. They can't figure out by looking that there is a reason you can adjust roller tension otherwise it would be a one position locking mechanism.
Hewy called me this morning and we had a great conversation. He told me that the outer shield wire is stainless and the inned is powder (hence fluxcore) but it really isn't a true fluxcore in the sense us welders think of. Fluxcore wire in welding just creates a layer of slag to protect the weld from air and fugg'n up the weld.
Inside this wire are all the alloys on powdered form. You probably figured that out but I figured I would finish out what is going on.

My compressor kit gets here tomorrow so tomorrow evening I will be able to get after this. Hewy wants me to send him test pieces 2"x3"x 1/4" in mild steel. So I am going to spray 6" long lengths of 2" flat (1/4") and then cut them in half. I will finish one side and leave the other just sprayed and left alone. I just have to make sure to mark the samples so I can keep up with them.
So it will be a busy weekend. eBay orders are kind of high and a few forums sales so those take precedence. But I will make sure to get those out of the way as quickly as possible and work this in.

SnowmanSteiner

Wow this is starting to move along. I can't wait to see what the final coat looks like and even more when Hewy gets the hardness level. Speaking of things that are cool, look what is parked across the street from my apartment right now:


- Steiner

Scalliwag

Haha! The "*******-Mobile"! One wrong turn and it's in deep ****!!!

Scalliwag

Before he takes off you should get a couple of big trash bags stuff with paper and hang it off the back! Then get a picture of that!!! You would have one helluva good story

SnowmanSteiner

I was actually considering grabbing the tarp out of my truck and throwing it on there. If I see anyone that looks like they work with it I might see if I can drive it, then I'll bring the video camera.

- Steiner

Scalliwag

Dammit Steiner go hang some nuts on the back and get a pic!

SnowmanSteiner

I was going to try and do that too. If I have some extra time this afternoon I'll make a run to walmart and see what I can do.

- Steiner

Scalliwag

That's it! Go to Wallyworld! If anyone carries oversized ******* sacks it's them!

SnowmanSteiner

Well actually I was going to go for a couple of the big blue *****, and then just return them. I don't think they'll have a sack that big.

- Steiner

patman

iTrader: (3)

Wal*Mart: Your source for giant oversized ********!

hahaha

scalli what exactly do you mean by powder inside? do you have to crimp the ends if you cut it? (to keep all the powder from spilling out) or is it not exactly powder, but a little more solid? i know in mig wire its just the glassy slag in there that melts when you weld... unless you do a tru mig with shielding gas... which is what i need to buy next time im not broke and learn to use... i wanna be able to cleanly weld aluminum....

pat

patman

iTrader: (3)

ps steiner: brown pillowcases + a black marker+ leaves/old clothes/paper towels/small children/neighbors annoying little wiener dog/ whatever else you find to stuff em with.

Scalliwag

Well Hewy says it is a powder so I am guessing that however it is being formed compresses the powder at it goes. Nothing noticable came out when I cut it. He also said that they do torch the end of the wire so the it will bend without breaking on the reel.
On fluxcore a trick I always did was took a hacksaw and made a angled cut or two on the spool and pulled the wire into the cut to hold it. Kind of like a spool of thread. The main thing is that you don't try to put much bend on it. But it's too much a pain to fire up a torch.
The last thing you want is for the wire to pop loose because it gets screw up quick

Scalliwag

Two big brown beanbag chairs! They unzip so you can still get rid of that yapp'n *** weeny dog too

Hans

well the worst part was after I got it back there was so much filings magnatized to the lugs inside by the drive rollers, that it took FOREVER to get it all out, and it got rust spots on the inside of it too, time to go find a paint match for lincoln red oh well at least I can do the whole thing again and put a couple coats of clear on it too. sometimes I think I love my machines a little too much.

btw about a year ago the weinertruck stayed next to our apaprtment, supposedly some aquaintances wrapped the bejesus outta it with seran wrap, even had a reservoir tip and all. Also not to long after a huge M&M on wheels rolled through, imagine a blue M&M on its back with its legs propped up almost in birthing posistion with a quite "full" feeling expression (not the food type either), windsheild was under the groin. Man that thing had all kinds of possibilities, too bad by the time we got done after class it was gone.

Scalliwag

Yea! I got my compressor kit in so I can rebuild the compressor as planned.

Scalliwag

Well I got the kit in the compressor and it is happy now. Better yet I got to test the new wire.
GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WORKS!!!!!
These pictures may not say much to you but here is the scenerio. As I said before I figured this would have to be water-cooled but I should be able to at least see if it works before going to all the trouble.
I was not able to pick up the blasting grit so I had to make due with an angle grinder and just kind of making little indentions to try to get a profile. But that was okay because I could at least tell if it would work.
I blew some metal on the test piece and then put in it to the belt sander and then to the angle grinder. It stuck tighter than a frog's *** (water tight )
The neat thing I was able to tell that this was working great because while grinding (or trying to grind) the sprayed area the angle grinder hardly phases it. But as soon as I got off the spray the disk would dig quickly.

If you go back to the original test housing back a long time ago you can see the similarity of the first grind where I just knocked the tops of the spray off but before I was down below the inconsistant surface.
So while this may not look like much it is exactly what I was hoping to see.

Fritz_X

iTrader: (1)

WoOOOOOoooOO!!! It is looking great Scalli, can't wait for the finished product!!

--Fritz

rotarypower101

iTrader: (1)

Do you spray with an inert gas or just use air for testing purposes right now?

Any thoughts on how to get a more consistent surface than that? It looks like just a splattery/ very spotty appearance? Or will it taker several layers to builds it up?

You really should be commended on you efforts Scalli. It looks incredible; I really hope this works out, and you get some real data and confirmation that this can work for tests until it becomes necessary to get a full setup.

GOOD JOB!!

Scalliwag

The longer the gun sprays and the hotter things get the more it kind of blobbed and erratic patterns started happening.
After shutting down and looking at the electrodes it was pretty easy to see why. I went by the hardware store after I posted last and started shopping like a madman. It was one of those that I had to kind of make this up as I went along AT the hardware store.
I needed to cool the electrode more than the head so I had to completely remake the electrode collets from scratch Sorta like a water cooled TIG head. The coolant needed to be in direct contact with the tungsten in order to transfer temperature. And the tungsten had to seal so that coolant did not leak in the gun. Sounds easy enough right?

So after about 45 minutes of bouncing aisle to aisle I headed to the register with $35 worth of **** to make this.
One thing that did not dawn on me at first but hit me good when it did, was I need two completely separate coolant systems because... well figure what is going to happen if the same source of liquid is in contact with both electrodes That would have nuked my welder
So in my next test after making the new "water cooled collets" I only had one electrode being cooled. I was kind of suprised at how much longer it let me run before giving me **** though.
Anyways now I have to get another pump to play with I did take more pics but I am at the shop right now. I will post when I get home in a bit.

SnowmanSteiner

This makes me happy. Cheers to your accomplishment to your next goal Scalli!

- Steiner

Scalliwag

Here I ran it until it started spattering bad. Once I get both electrodes cooling I can have more time to make adjustments. Hewy was telling me that you can tell by the sound when it is adjusted right. That is pretty much like a MIG. It will start sounding "cleaner" as you get closer to the sweet spot.
But to get there I will have to be able to have the gun set to spray without me touching it so I can have both hands free. One to adjust wire speed and the other for amperage.
I have a strong feeling though that I may have to put this on my AC welder for the best results. I will have to hook a remote to arc manually since it will not tie into the wire feeder. At least not a direct plug in.

You can tell by the pic that the longer I sprayed the bigger the spatter got. Notice that the bigger spatter is on top of the smaller. Obviously the finer I can keep the spray the better.

Scalliwag

Oh BTW here is what I found at the scrapyard today. The cooler works but anyone familiar knows that they have left handed fittings so I have to get a couple of those Monday I can use the water cooler one side of the gun (as well as my TIG )
The foot pedal for the TIG was nuck'n futz lucky because it was a Hobart just like my TIG so it was a straight plug in. They do come in different resistance so I have to check that before I try to run it. I pulled the specs for mine right after I got it in case I had to build a pedal... but I guess I don't have to do that now

BTW, the cooler was $30 and the pedal was $10.

SnowmanSteiner

I was going to say why don't you just get a foot pedal to adjust wire speed.

- Steiner

Scalliwag

Darn my web server is down A foot pedal for wire speed would be tricky to work or else you would have to make it kind of stiff to stay at a certain point.
Well all this working on the gun has me way behind on making parts orders so I got to get to work at that.
I will get back on the gun Tuesday though.

couturemarc

Wow! I've spent the better part of an hour reading through the last 43 pages of posts. You guys have some great ideas and lots of determination. Its amazing what a determined team can accomplish!

I wish all of you the best of luck with all your projects, i simply wanted to let you know that our company (JHB Engineering) manufactures cermet coated rotor housings and end housings. We offer 2 coating for the rotor housings and one for the end housings, both superior to chrome. These parts have been 5 years in development and testing and were unveiled for the first time this year at Sevenstock 7.

If any of you are interested in more information visit our website at www.jbhperformance.com

Keep up the innovative spirit!

Scalliwag

That link did not work but I figured out the h and b were wrong on the link. The direct link to the housings are http://www.jhbperformance.com/products/rotorhousing.php
That is very interesting and exactly what I have been trying to do obviously. The pricing is reasonable as well.

So at least a lot of the theory here has been correct. Some questions I wonder about is how much better are these at withstanding apex seal failure? I am sure that is subjective to an extent but I am guess that failures have happened that you have seen the results?

I know that if the hardness and anti-galling properties are higher they should withstand better.
How about if a housing you have done gets mildly damaged, can you "touch up" areas and hone it back to spec at a reduced cost to the customer? Or does that process have to be done from scratch?
It sucks to know I will not be the first to do it, but it is nice to know it will work.

But I would like to hear some examples as to what you have seen in the results. Were getting seals to seat any trouble, etc.

couturemarc

Yes, we have had failures during testing, most of which we had to force to fail.

In one engine, with cermet B coating we ran the engine at 4000 rpm and fed aluminum oxide into the engine (about 1/2 a cup) in efforts to cause excessive wear. We also cause hydraulic lock in another engine by filling it with liquid and forcing the engine to turn over in efforts to crack or damage our cermet A coating. Lastly we caused extreme detonation in a cermet A engine to see if we could break it.

The results were all the same, no measurable wear on the cermet coatings and little or no damage to the cermet parts in all the above tests. We did however break the rear end housing by the upper dowel pin in both the hydraulic lock and detonation test... I've been told by several engine builders that this type of failure typically happens at over 45psi of boost.

We were unable to break our apex seals during these tests but we do not claim that they are "unbreakable" by any means. So we have not yet seen an apex seal failure at this point.

We can repair our cermet A housings at a slightly lower cost, cermet B is the same cost to have re-coated.

Its worth mentioning that we had our engines put through a 10000 hour simulation test (simulates 300 000 miles) about 3 years ago during our development of these parts and we experienced the same results as Mazda did in with the 787B.... minimal wear. We have also experimented with several types of coatings and application processes and found that the coating material and process are highly critical as well as the finnish quality and tolerances.

again, you guys are doing great work! I know for a fact that Mazda looks to the rotary community for new ideas all the time.... keep it up

Marc Couture,
JHB Performance Engineering

Scalliwag

Holy Shiite! Whose idea was it to pour the aluminum oxide into the motor?!?!?! That is great. If you ever ate Post Grape Nuts and that un-nerving sound like you are chewing gravel is how I imagine it sounding.
But this does make perfect since to me with what little experience I have with the coatings. or at least the Armacor. Even diamond and zirconia have a hard time.
Way back on this thread when I was in the big argument with the guy that had a problem with me making all the claims and not having SAE's to back anything up is coming back to me now.
There was just no way in his mind that this was at all possible at least not without a piece of paper to prove it I'm sure you guys had much more documentation, resources and knowledge to fall back on than I have but common sense told me the material would at least be better than stock. But as I found in that long exchange "common sense" can be very elusive to some people.

I also saw on your site that you guys are working with hydrogen powered rotaries. Man that is an incredibly promising project. It is a really cool day job you got there. I am just a lowly computer guy for a defense contractor by day I help people that help people help other people blow other people up I guess. Gawd forbid that "peace" breaks out

This is very interesting work you guys are doing and I know everyone here has a lot of interest. So all of your input and especially stories of your destructive testing is greatly welcome!

couturemarc

To further answer your question, no, there are no big issues with getting seals to seat. We've been testing with various after market seals in the last few months with good success so far.

We also offer and recommend NRS ceramic power seals, as an automotive engineer (with obvious experience in ceramics) i've inspected these seals an found them to be of the highest quality available. We will be offering these on our website soon.

Our engineers are presently working on several rotary engine projects for manufacturers other than Mazda including Hydrogen power and steam power. The rotary engine industry is BOOMING, no matter what anyone tells you. I guarantee that within 5 years from now millions and millions of engines will be in production. As i said earlier many of these companies look to sites like this for R&D ideas and to see what works and what doesn't (including Mazda). The work and testing that all of you do is very important!

If someone wants to help me do this i can post pics of the parts after the tests we've done so all of you can see for yourselves what aluminum oxide, hydraulic lock and extreme detonation do to cermet coatings.

E-mail me at mcouture@jhbperformance.com and i can send someone the pics to post on this site.

Good Luck!

Scalliwag

I will email you once I get home. If you ever want free hosting, use www.photobucket.com It is free and easy. They even generate the code to the picture so you can copy and paste it in your posts.
You could email them to my scalliwag@scalliwag.com address also. I am anxious to see them.

couturemarc

I just e-mailed a few pics to Steiner, he will post them for me (thanks Steiner!) I should have a few more pics in a couple days of the aluminium oxide test.... I'll send them to both of you guys.