Aluminum Model M Case

[matt-taco]

The stories a little long, but, my friend and I are gonna be casting some aluminum Model M cases. We are going to 3d print model m cases with virtually no infill, cover it in plaster and cast it in aluminum.  We are finishing up the 3d model, almost done with the new foundry and we are waiting for a piece of pyrex print bed to come in from china for our 480x480x840cm 3d printer.

Just curious if anyone cares to see this project through to fruition and if I should post about here on geek hack.

Its been about 2 years since I've lurked around these parts.

[TheNeonKnight]

Which M were you thinking about making it for?

[sharktastica]

I'm definitely intrigued. Any sort of idea on a price tag yet? Also, is this just for a standard full-sized Model M or do you plan to expand to other variants too?

[fohat.digs]

casting some aluminum Model M cases.

A cast aluminum case would be great. What kind of money would you be asking, even approximately?

[sharktastica]

Just curious if anyone cares to see this project through to fruition and if I should post about here on geek hack.

If I may be so bold, feel free to share on the r/ModelM subreddit and its Discord - you may find some specific interest there too.

[jacethesaltsculptor]

I'd recommend sharing this around the net too,

I'd be interested for sure.

(Has this thread become an impromptu IC? )

[TheNeonKnight]

I feel like you could get a lot of traction with something like this

[ddrfraser1]

Definitely interested. Following.

[Rob27shred]

I definitely be interested in one of them depending on price! Would give me a good reason to put my Model M back into rotation!

[matt-taco]

Read through some posts, uhh, saw sone general questions, guess Ill answer some of them.

At the moment, we will be basing it off a Unicomp model because 1) they're pretty much identical to older ones key feel wise, atleast compared to my practically new1986 Model M 2) bolt mods are a bbbbbbbbtch. 3) uniformity between models, wont need to worry about having to change the print file. If you really want a vintage look, just get some og keycaps, new Unicomp ones are pretty fuzzy
That said, should be compatible with all 100% model Ms.

Price? Not sure if we are gonna be selling any. It depends on how successful we get at casting, and how long it takes to clean them up. We're guessing prob around 250 to 300 dollars plus shipping if we do. The foundry is gonna cost about 110 dollars, takes a while to collect enough aluminum cans or scrap from ours and others recycling. Also about 20 of plaster per case cast. Also hours of refining aluminum and making the cases look nice. Oh yeah, we also think it will take about 10 dollars of pla per case.
Again, price may change. We'll know in a couple weeks whenever we attempt the first case cast.

We already have about 14 lbs of aluminum muffins collected. Idk how many cases that is. Ill know how much whenever we finish the model and can get the volume.

Also, there will be an M0116 case eventually, hopefully by new years.

I guess Ill keep posting here. Might start a new thread whenever we actually start printing cases.

Thanks for yalls interest! Sorry if there are any typos, typing an essay for an anthropology class rn, don't have the time to proof read.

[yui]

do you plan on open sourcing? i want to make an unsaver M so having part of the case already made would help a lot and either way being in Europe shipping is gonna be quite the hassle...

[fohat.digs]

You are smelting your own aluminum? If you were in East Tennessee I could get you what you need.

Bolt-modding is something that you get used to after you do it a few times. It is still a PITA but becomes routine.

Merely bringing this subject up was guaranteed to generate a lot of lust and desire amongst Model M users.

[ddrfraser1]

Not sure if we are gonna be selling any.

Why do you hurt me?

[matt-taco]

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Why do you hurt me?
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I'm sorry.... 3D printing cases is annoying enough to get to look nice.

But, more than likely we'll be making more than just some for ourselves

[hvontres]

Sounds like a fun project

Just curious, what kind of furnace are you using? I was thinking of setting up a backyard smelter at some point.

Given the ammount of time you have invested in this, you might want to look into getting some actual aluminum casting alloy. As I recall, they generally have a bit more silicon then the extruded grades to make the casting solidify better. Given that you have a lot of relatively thin sections, that might become an issue.

Good luck and let us see some pictures

[matt-taco]

Just curious, what kind of furnace are you using?

We were using a fire pit, a 3 amp server fan and a crucible. We've gotten about 14 lbs of aluminum through that method. It is pretty slow tho. Average session is about 6 hours.

The new foundry is a decapped propane tank, a harbor freight propane weed torch, refractory cement, and ceramic wool for lining the lid. I have a 140mm hole saw I use to cut holes for in old beige pc cases, we're prob gonna use that for the hole in the lid. We are still waiting for the ceramic wool to come in the mail, so it may not be till next week that we will have it up and running. I will post pictures of that.

From what we've seen, melting cans and random aluminum scrap should suffice. I think our main issue is melting enough aluminum, more than we would need for the cast, so that the extra weight will provide extra pressure to force the aluminum into the cast and hopefully help burn off all of the pla and purge all of the air bubbles.

Aluminum alloys might be something to look into, but, we barely have enough money as is, so, we're gonna plan to stick with whatever free aluminum we can get.

[Leslieann]

I think you have far more issues than you think.

I'm guessing you haven't done any casting from PLA yet using the plaster method?
You can't simply pour aluminum into the plaster and burn out the PLA, it will work but not well (at least one Youtuber has done a lot of work with this). You will have to put the plaster into the kiln/foundry and burn/melt out the PLA and the water(!), and it will take HOURS, with something this large it could take days (and it can also crack). And then you need to pour while the plaster is still hot, and in a single shot. So your setup will need to be able to not only melt that much aluminum (which is also dangerous), but also something to heat the plaster casting at the same time. A few impefect trinkets are one thing, something this size is a delicate and dangerous operation.

By the way, you can buy filament designed for this purpose, it's a bit pricey but considering the size of this project it may be a wise investment as opposed to the amount of gas and time you are going to spend trying to get a good cast from PLA. Another question, why not just make a sand cast of an original case or the printed one? It would certainly be easier than designing, printing then struggling to get a decent cast from PLA, and then having to start all over with printing it again. You could even mod the original case with clay prior to making the molds.

As for where to get metal, old hard drives are a favorite of many hackerspaces.

[matt-taco]

I think you have far more issues than you think.

We'll see. Back in August we had good success with casting a few small "ben buddhas" (long story) with pla and casting sand. We'll see what happens as we scale up and move to plaster. We're probably going to do a test case next week a 60% AEK case for my brown alps 60%. My.

Btw, I have a drawer with about 20 ide HDDs and a 5 stat HDDs, it would pain me to melt their housing down if they still work.

[yui]

annoying that you are that far away, i have quite a few dead 3.5 and 2.5 hdd that would have been great for that, i guess you could try to find a computer repair shop that could spare a few of their dead hdd (i do not know where you live but here they have to pay to get rid of them usually) or maybe a shop working with aluminum willing to spare their "trash", although in both case it will not be pure aluminum like cans, it will likely have silicon and other metals in the allow to make it stronger, and an other potentially decent source of casting aluminum would be dead engine blocks, depending on where you live and who you know.

[Krogenar]

Interested! Post the results, even bad results!