pics of my church project

Very, very nice. I hope they like it.

Even to a die hard atheist that's very nice :)

Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines

I'm not at all sure why women like men. We're argumentative, childish, unsociable and extremely unappealing naked. I'm quite grateful they do though.

Very pretty work!

Harold

Very nice Chemy!

Merry Christmas!

Bing

Lovely! Going to put a couple LEDs in it?

Are you of Danish ancestery? If so, Gladely(sp?) Jul. If not, Merry Christmas.

That church looks very much the same basic design as the one my inlaws had. Aparently a very common Danish Christmas ornament. Of course, theirs wasn't Aluminum. :-)

Ted

That looks nice to me. What color(s) will you have it anodized?

Merry Christmas, DoN.

Very nice indeeed. What machines/tooling did you use?

You may be able to anodize different parts of the church in different colors, and as you will find out, there are some hellified colors available. Someone on RCM probably knows of the guy who has an anodizing website for DIYers, which is a GREAT site, clearly a labor of love--iffin you want to try your own anodizing. I have it somewhere, but I'd have to dig it up.

Well, I started out with a 4.5" long piece of 5" round stock, so I faced both ends of that in a lathe. The rest was all done on a manual vertical mill (the DRO on it really saved me from pulling my hair out, I think). I used a face mill to get it down to size and an endmill for the windows, door, and cross. To get the 45 degree angle for the roof I just laid out the roofline with layout die and lined that up with the jaw of the vice, same with the steeple. I don't know if the picture shows it very well, but there's an overhang from the roof all the way around. After machining it I took a Dremel to the windows and door to clean up the insides of them a bit, then I flat-filed the whole thing and polished it up on the buffing wheel.

I'm not going to attempt my own anodizing - I can get it done for $5, and I'd rather go that route than risk messing it up. Just out of curiousity though, I looked up DIY anodizing. Interesting process, but not one I want to get into right now... :)

Not sure what color I'll go for - maybe just a plainish metallic color - I don't want it to end up looking gaudy. (church -> gaudy? teehee)

chem

Leaning towards a sort of bronzish color, but maybe just clear. The real reason I'm having it anodized is more for protection than anything else. Maybe I should ask my folks if they have a preference... :)

chem

I tried a tea light in it, and that looked pretty good, but yeah, a couple of leds would be nice. Someone suggested putting stained glass in the windows too. Not real stained glass, but I guess you can buy sheets of some sort of plastic that looks like stained glass. So, the light would look really nice shining through that. I'm going to take a look for that stuff after Christmas. I think I may make/buy some sort of wooden base for it too. This is turning into the neverending project. lol.

Nope, not Danish. So... Merry Christmas to you too! (Hard to believe tomorrow's the big day, eh?)

chem

Nice! I don't want to burst your bubble of inexperience, but I've seen "machinists" with many years experience who couldn't do that. Keep at it.

*blush* Thanks. And oh, feel free to burst away. lol :D

chem

What are you talkin about? If it were any smaller I wouldnt be able to even see it!

:) Bing

Need to borrow my Optivisor? It's got 10x lenses in it.

Heck, anymore I need them and a loupe. Just for the bathroom. :)

Funny thing is I can pretty much see my monitor but cant see anything black on black or white on white.

I dont know what thats all about.

Bing

Could be the start of cataracts?

Rick

Shhh. Rick, we feel more comfortable blaming age. :-)