Good news everyone. They ran some samples at the foundry today and in general everything went very well. The foundry owner was impressed at how well the first run went because there are very little changes that I need to make to the pattern to deal with some shrinkage in one particular part of each piece.

Some more good news is that my buddy who took the prototype with him to the Land Rover National Rally in Ouray said that it held up as expected and the extinguisher never budged from the clamp all week.

Here's a pic of what it looks like as it came out of the sand.


This is a part that I machined the inner diameter on just to see how well it is going to work.

 

I know this update is long overdue, sorry guys. However, since getting back in town after a long month at work, I have been quite busy setting up meetings with local vendors, suppliers, manufacturing companies, etc. to finally nail down all of the remaining details that need to be dealt with. I have also been working on the remaining details that need to be changed with the pattern for the casting which should be all wrapped up this week.

I have two more meetings tomorrow which, if they go well, will bring final resolution to the manufacturing of the mounting base, and the deburring/finishing of the cast parts.

For the sake of time, I have decided to hire a machine shop take care of the machining that I had planned on doing myself. It will add a few dollars to the price, but I am assuming that everyone would rather pay a few more dollars at this point than wait on me to return from work again in order to machine the parts myself. Not to mention that a proper machine shop will without a doubt be able to do better quality work on a CNC than I can do on a manual mill in my garage.

 

The last week and a half has been great for getting the final details nailed down. I've been so busy that I haven't stopped to update you guys here, so let me get everyone caught up with a few pictures and captions to go with them.

First of all, the second run of castings went very well, the shrinkage issues that we experienced on the first run have been resolved, and there is a minimal amount of pitting on the edge of some of the parts where a little bit of sand is falling down into the mold cavity. The foundry said it is no big deal and they can determine the cause of this issue when they do the production run and resolve it on the spot. I want to stress to everyone that this pitting IS NOT internal to the part, it is only on the edges but I expect it to be completely gone in the final run. Here's some parts straight from the foundry.


I've settled on a shop who will do the cleanup on the clamp halves after the foundry is done with them in order to clean up the flashing and give them a nice uniform finish. Here's what they look like after sanding and tumbling.



I had to redesign the mounting base to reduce manufacturing costs, but the benefit is actually twofold. I redesigned it to be a box which can be formed from a single flat pattern piece which can be folded into a box, then only the corners require welding. It reduced the amount of total inches that would have to be cut on the water jet, and greatly simplified the welding process. In the end it resulted in an 18% decrease in the cost of the base itself. This cost reduction really helped out a lot, because the price target was starting to look like it was going to be in the $80 range which I know many of you would not be happy with, including myself. In addition to the reduced cost, it also provides a wider, more stable mounting base. This should provide more flexibility for those wishing to mount it to a roll cage using one or two U-bolts. Here's a rending of the new design.


One other notable update is that I have also settled on a very reputable machine shop to machine the cast parts. They are the same shop that does all of the machining for Toytec lifts which I'm sure many of you have heard of. The owner is a really great guy and has given me a lot of great advice, as well as contacts for local shops and suppliers who are good to work with.

 

That looks great!It would be a great improvement replacing my plastic torch holder.

 

It is official, the group buy is now open. Details here: https://landroverforums.com/forum/me...33/#post429234