Lon,
Those 3-d printers are awesome there's a lot of potential with them! Maybe some day we will be Abel to print some Barnes merchandise I'm sure the quality would not be the same tho lol! my cousin was telling me some guy printed a castle in his backyard! I did not belive it until I saw the video ha here's the link
Matt
youtube



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2016 04:27PM by barnespneumatic.

Saw that one with the giant nozzle squirting out mortar, makes some pretty elaborate ring forms and such. By the time they stack them all up it does look pretty castle-like. Personally, I'd be a lot happier with some wire mesh or rebar in there somewhere, the structure they built is not going to be very strong.

All that technology, and they assembled it with a jacked up mess of step ladders and boards, and guys just seconds from being off work for months due to concrete structures crushing them.

Guys ..... The LEVER. Rope, Counterweight, Tripod, Boom Arm. Not busted Arm. Just say'n....

Yep. Neat Castle. Not too kid friendly, but very showy.

Gary,

Hey Sry to get off topic.. I'm with you on the assembling operation being a little sketchy... I'm sure osha would not be happy with it haha they weren't wearing hard hats! As Sean was saying too some rebarb and steel mesh would make it much stronger! I got to give it to the guy tho that's some dedication lol.

Matt

Yeah. Anybody who has mixed concrete will realize he must have been one busy dude hand feeding bags into that small mixer, keeping the consistency correct, and then feeding the hopper for the printer. 1). Load bags of concrete at the seller. 2). Offload truck. 3). Feed mixer. 4) feed hopper. You handle each bag 4-5 times. And, THAT is a LOT of concrete!!!!

Dude must have one amazing back. He should be studied for that alone!!!! Ha.

Gary

Hadn't even thought about that Gary, but the opening shot showed quite a few bags stacked up. I've got a teeny little electric mixer from Home Despot and keeping it fed with 80 lb bags of quickcrete gets old in a hurry even though it mixes slow as molasses Keeping a contraption like his fed probably requires a couple of guys in the background mixing all the time. It might be more accurate to call it a "3-d mortar extruder" anyway, since his mix didn't seem to have any coarse aggregate in it. In fact, I didn't see the nozzle move up or down in the video I watched, it might actually be a 2-d extruder that is manually adjusted in the vertical dimension. Pretty impressive anyway, and if you dropped some wire forms in every few layers it would probably make it strong enough to work for decorative use at least.

It's an amazing accomplishment. I am impressed.

Problem is with things like this, I have well enough experience with like things to have some quite valid questions.

1). They show him applying new layers to the previous ones, which appear to be quite dry. The crossections of the laid on fillets are only about an inch or 1 1/2" wide each pass. I'm surprised the new layers bond perfectly to the dry layers. I'd have thought that interaction would be critical. Not let the cure get too far ahead. At least wet down the old layers. Or coat them with a bonding agent. Just say'n.

2). Wonder how they controlled the extrusion of the concrete do well. Great pump action.

Gotta go .,,

Hi Rotor,

Mixers and 80 pound bags. That's tough work. Here's a couple tips you can take or leave. In the category of "working smarter". First - buy 60 bags. Everything also comes in that package. It makes a big difference along about bag twenty and farther. If you must use the 80 pound bags, only dump in and mix 40 lbs to start. Mix that fairly wet (soupy) then feather in the other forty pounds. It will mix faster and not clump.

Don't ask me how I know ...

Gary

Good tips, I'll have to see if I can get the smaller bags locally.

Some good points, I was also thinking he must have had to wait some time between each layer. I'd imagine if it was all done at once it would look vary strange ha... Don't really know a whole lot about masonry but keeping the mix consistent is probably a big factor...there's a lot being done with the 3d printers, seen some guys printing some elaborate bronze door handles on how it's made, they used a metal Powder and after the object was printed it's was baked in a oven to bond the metal, even seen some 3d printed foods! For some applications 3d printing is great, but the old fashion way of machining/building parts from solid stock/natural materials has benefits you can't get from printing... Don't think I want some 3d printed food just yet...

Matt