Thanks for the pdf's Mike. This one is really neat. It is hard to believe they are flame spraying an aluminum cylinder

 

Hey Hans,
Look what I made There is a good reason that the inside of the nozzle is a little dirty looking I have more changes to make but I figure those of you who have endured this long *** thread deserve to see something cool.
You should see the light show this thing makes!
I was testing it using regular solid core 1/16" MIG wire. Armacor did not get the wire shipped until yesterday
I mainly wanted to test the arc process and it was pretty damn fun. The insulated tungsten collets I made were not nearly as much fun but they are trick as hell. They lock the tungsten and tighten the cable lug.
You can tell by the size of the air coupler how big (or small) the entire gun is.

Hans it looks as though you gave me the best idea anyone has given me so far. If this does work you will be compen$ated.

thanks, Scalli

p.s. does anybody want to see video of this?

 

video...

 

I'd say that's an affirmative

 

Okay. I will take some tomorrow and post a link.

 

I am going to make a small site glass with a shaded welding lens and place it just above the air inlet so I can watch the point of arc. It may help get the feel on adjusting it. If nothing else it will give me something else to look at

 

Damn man that's some nice work their. What did you use to mill the holes? Do you have a cnc machine yet?

- Steiner

 

I wish I did. That is the work of a bandsaw to cut the length. Then my trusty Harbor Freight POS lathe to face the ends square and bore the hole in the middle. Then I just drilled and reamed to size the rest of the assorted holes with my big drill press. The collet work is a bit of a secret Maybe I can cash in on at least one of my goofy *** ideas one day and get a CNC mill. The odds are much better of me finding one in the scrapyard though

 

here is the video. Here is what is happening; I am hitting a foot control for the air and triggering the wire feeder with my left hand. You will notice that some sparks are coming out the top. That is an access hole for gapping and aligning the electrodes. I leave it uncapped just in case I get the wire speed too fast or one of the weld cables come off.
If that did happen the wire would come up through there instead of balling up in the gun.
I just have a ground clamp and an electrode holder clipped to the electrodes for now. Later I will make me a couple of cables with cable lugs crimped on them.
It will look much cleaner when I have the lug setup.
Also no making fun of my welding cap I cannot function in the shop without the cap on.
I had pulled the head off of the big compressor in order to rebuild it before "you guys" got me back to messing with this. So I am running this off a compressor way to small. I wasn't planning on needing the big compressor soon so I am putting a rebuild kit in it.

Enjoy it guys http://www.scalliwag.com/singlearc/singlewire.wmv

and here is my imitation of Steiner

 

so you can resurface rotor housings using that?

i have one or 2 back home that have a couple seal scrapes in it when the motor threw a seal, if you need one let me know you pay shipping and its yours

 

Wow that's some powerful stuff right there. Do you know how far away from the housing will produce the best even layer, or are you planning on finding that out later during R&D? Thanks for the pic it's pretty good hehehe. Razorback, he is planning on using that to spray a ceramic over the inside of the housing, which will then have to be milled down to factory spec.

- Steiner

 

ah ok. i get it now.

 

hold up.. a ceramic? i didnt know you could wire spray ceramic...how does that work?

pat

 

Most people think of a porcelin or tile type of ceramic when they think of ceramics. Ceramics related to this is a completely different dog in the general sense.
Technically the Armacor is not a ceramic but it is not very far off in the big scheme of things.
For all practical explanation here it would be a great short answer.
I still only know enough to be dangerous and I can barely spell metallurgy so I am the last guy to want to have to clarify the difference.
Once the actual wire that is supposed to be used gets here I can really get started moving this forward. Hewy (from the place that makes the metallizing material for those not keeping up with 36 pages ) said he would like to come up from Houston if this looks promising.
I need to check how much time I have saved at work and take a couple of days off and get him to come up. He would be able to help tune this thing and save me some time and/or give me some advice to changes I may need. Then he can take test pieces back to the lab.

 

I think the basic premise is like a plasma torch. Except instead of trying to cut through something you are doing at a lower heat so that it will instead just coat it in a liquid form rather than melting straight through it. At least I think that's how it works. The wire that Scalliwag is talking about is the ceramic and as it feeds into the gun and touches the electrode it is melted and sprayed via the air compressor onto whatever it is your quoting. Again this is how I think it works, I'm sure Scalliwag can tell you much more than I.

- Steiner

 

I won't know anything until I get the actual spray wire. One thing for certain is that I will have to tweak everything from air nozzles to output nozzles, amperage and wire speed, and air pressure in order to get this to work at the distance I need. That is a helluva lot of variables when you think about it.
I will have to keep track of all of that on the samples I send back. I will have to keep a list of all my settings and have an identification number on each sample. That way when they tell me which sample looks the best I can refer to my notes on the settings.
I know I can spray at an angle which will help. The more tilted the gun is the more room I have between it and the spray surface.
Depending on how much angle I can run will determine a lot. For one it will affect the degree I can make the air inlet.
You will see in the video I am using a straight pipe. That will not work but a quick 90 degree is not good either. If I can get away with a 45 on my air inlet I can get a smoother air flow.
Everything on this is so short that there is not much room for things to stabilize like they would with longer straight runs.

It is kind of like welding thin metal. Everything is more critical and less forgiving. I won't have two or three inches to move the tip back and forth to compensate as a fine adjustment.

 

Hey I updated my sig

 

I know something about ceramic alloys, since i used to be a competitive mountain biker, and im going into the aerospace field, etc. I just wasnt aware that a ceramic/metallic material could be sprayed like scalli is doing. I understand the process, too. Only thing is, if the ceramic is a nonconductor (most or all? of them are) then how is it melted by the arc?

or is the arc between the electrodes and the wire is just fed through it?

pat

 

In this case the wire is causing the arc to start between the electrodes. In the case of a true plasma or flame gun the material does not have be conductive.
As a matter of fact they spray plastics and other things besides metal based materials.

 

oh ok. well, learn something everyday. thanks.

pat

 

Yup, same here . Thanks for the clarification Scalli

- Steiner

 

You are not alone on that Pat. Here is a great link that Hans posted (and I had lost so he has really ben a great help lately ) http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/
I have not covered nearly all of that site. But the info I have got has helped me understand quite a bit of the different processes available.
What I am doing now is about as bastardized a process as there is. It is a combination of three technologies. It was Hans that steered me this way with an earlier post.
The twin wire, plasma, and the flame process that uses a single wire are all kind of rolled into this.
Plasma costs to much, twin wire takes too large a gun to do inside diameter work, and flame spray gets the part too hot.
The wire process is the most affordable and the part stays cool. Getting a wire spray in a tight place would be the ideal candidate.

Now early on we found out that housings could be done with a twin wire but it was hard to control and the people that sprayed my housings ended up fugg'n them up bad.

 

yeah i remember that... i'd imagine with you behind the wheel and not having to depend on machine shop guys this will go a lot smoother. One more question, although i'm sure it has been answered before... how are you planning on grinding the housings back into shape after they are sprayed? seems like a pretty precise job to do by hand, but with the trochoid shape, its gonna be hard to get a machine to do it....

pat

 

Haha! Yep it was covered way back in the first few pages. I spent an *** load a couple years back building a grinding and polishing system that could reproduce the shape right on the nuts. I could even go in or out to be a little bigger or smaller and still maintain a true shape.
While I love showing off gizmos I keep this under wraps. Too much invested on that.
It was very disappointing that the spray shop threw a wrench in this project but as they say sometimes things end up working out better in the end.... too bad that has yet to be proven though

 

lol well everyone here is counting on it. are you planning to grind the housings down a little before spraying them so that you get an even surface, or are you just using this to fill the holes, or are you counting on normal wear to keep you in specs after theyve been filled a little? and if you are gonna do a full coat, which seems like the only way to go to me, how thick are you shooting for the end coating to be?

sorry about all these questions from way back when, but i'm taking a break from calc 3 homework to read this and i dont have time to read through 37 pages...lol

pat