just another plasma build and then some :)

thefabricator03 wrote: I am researching an infill for a steel weldment CNC mill and I am considering using epoxy resin and making a polymer concrete fill.

Why not use the dust from plasma cutting with epoxy?
It is much heavier and costs nothing, well some washing required !

I have considered that but from my dealings with the stuff it goes rock hard when it dries out and I am not sure how well it would spread. If I can get it to soften and spread out like sand I would be happy.

My other issue is the use of epoxy, here in Australia its around $400 for 20 liters of the stuff. I have been considering using non shrink concrete as I can get that locally relatively cheaply.

Putting it in the tumbler for about 3 minutes should turn it back to dust.
The issue might be to fine dust/grains as i've read several times that there must be a mix of grain sizes, but this was for sand to fill the voids.
As for the price, i win, again, as last i checked here it was at 27 Euro per litre!

That a good call with using the tumbler, I did not think about that.

How do you think normal concrete would go Tom?

opensourcemachinetools.org/wordpress/concrete-lathe/

www.google.com/amp/s/www.instructables.c...the/%3famp_page=true

www.cnccookbook.com/epoxy-granite-cnc-machine-fill/

any help or ideas?

Concrete would work if it is set inside of metal profiles and packed to the brim, otherwise concrete will start to degrade from vibrations quite fast. Ceramic tiles glue might be much better than concrete ... i think, it took a lot of beating with a hammer to remove . Also it can be bought premixed, just add water !

robertspark wrote: opensourcemachinetools.org/wordpress/concrete-lathe/

www.google.com/amp/s/www.instructables.c...the/%3famp_page=true

www.cnccookbook.com/epoxy-granite-cnc-machine-fill/

any help or ideas?

Thanks for that Robert, those links were helpful especially the first concrete lathe link. Its a pretty interesting to see low cost designs.

thefabricator03 wrote:

robertspark wrote: opensourcemachinetools.org/wordpress/concrete-lathe/

www.google.com/amp/s/www.instructables.c...the/%3famp_page=true

www.cnccookbook.com/epoxy-granite-cnc-machine-fill/

any help or ideas?

Thanks for that Robert, those links were helpful especially the first concrete lathe link. Its a pretty interesting to see low cost designs.

some guys are very talented, have a lot of patience and free time to focus on those sorts of projects. a. lot more skill than I when it comes to alignment. I would be miffed if I got to the end and stuff was out of square and you now have a 100kg door stop

sorry guys i have been busy with a lot of stuff lately.

regular concrete has shrinkage in the mix so if just adding weight is the goal that is about as cheap as it gets. with the epoxy it only shrinks around .001 imperial. any metal dust added would be about the equivalent to the machine setting epoxy for leveling stuff i would think.

epoxy granite is not cheap by any means 2000 lbs of it cost probably around $3,000 for materials so food for thought.

this is the kind of epoxy i used but it's not the only brand out there that can be used. EpoxAcast 650 black is what i used.

. www.smooth-on.com/product-line/epoxacast/

i had some riding mower issues and had the motor pretty much scatter because someone thought it would be a good idea to place plastic gears in the motor? typical throw away products these days? so i was looking around and decided to get something that would make life a little bit easier found something that would help move stuff and cut grass

they make fork attachments for these so it's going to be my baby fork lift for outdoors operations since it's 4WD it will kill two birds with one stone