September has arrived and whilst we have built some finished goods stock of all models we will be making up components on the lathes. A shame that the local recycled metal yards have no suitable scrap aluminium to convert - the last of the scrap bar stock was converted in August with good results.

So this morning we took delivery of several hundreds pounds worth of new bar stock - having had the practice on the scrap material - the processing of decent quality material should be fairly straight forward. The main difference is that at 3000mm length & 3600mm I was not going to be able to get this into the workshop and feed it  into the saw. The supplier offered two free handling cuts per stock bar.  At 1500mm long the half lengths are far easier to maneuver - a few minutes at the saw and each length was cut down to 500mm ready for turning down the diameter to the required size for the fan hubs.

The longer lengths of 76mm diameter bar stock for the base discs still weigh a fair amount and as such will require some considerable care in handling the cutting down to 15mm blank lengths. Every dent on the outer girth requires more machining off to give a clean finish.  The heat generated on the band saw without coolant is fine for the initial 15 minutes of cutting after which the stock length is too hot to hold without gloves - slow and steady with two lengths alternating every 10 minutes gets over the issue of heat.

Despite all the handling issues it still works out far more cost effective for the conversion of the bar stock into blanks rather than buying in pre-cut or finished components - the production volumes being in the hundreds rather than the 1000's at this stage to minimize the cash required for the business.

The New Website !
Well work is underway. A little later than I had hoped falling as it does at a a time when the schools start up again and school runs, homework etc etc eat into the available time. I foresee some late nights and weekends playing catch up.

I have in mind to video some of the production work and include sequences on the website and here within this blog to provide a perspective of the micro business ...... just need a digital video camera for a few days ....

Nice to see the existing website interest picking up for the season - sales for Sept' are ahead of Augusts already, encouraging and rewarding to see the investment funds slowly being replaced.

Now where can I get my hands on a Nikon DSLR with video facility ?