StoopidEngineer
New Member
Good Morning All!
Just to give you a quick rundown of where I am: I’m new to this site, but I’ve been a big fan of the café style bikes since first seeing them start to pop up several years ago. This seems to be one of, if not the definitive source for the café community, and I’m very glad to have found it. I actually was searching for a cheap alternative to replace the leaking tank on one of my bikes, and by googling around, found a thread on making parts out of carbon fiber, that led me to a thread about making fiberglass parts here.
I turn 27 in a couple of days, and work full time as a Mechanical Engineer designing automation equipment. I’ve been a rider all my life, have had a pretty wide variety of street bikes (and more dirt bikes than I can remember) including a Honda 919 that I just sold to help cover the cost of adopting a little girl from Colombia with my wife. My wife in her infinite patience (and desire to have me out of her hair while she does her schoolwork) has allowed me to keep an 80 XS850G and an 86 XS600. As soon as I can get the headlight working and the carbs cleaned up on the triple, I’ll be using that for my commuter while I hack the little Radian to pieces to make something unique out of it.
Here comes the actual reason for the post: I use SolidWorks 2012 10 hours a day, every day, so my design/CAD skills are solid, but where I lack experience is fabrication. I’ve spent very little time actually cranking handles, and my welding skills are only suitable for anything that will never be seen by anyone but me. I don’t have a mill, bender, welder or anything fancy in the little garage that I work out of, as most of my money is tied up in the HUD home I’m rehabbing, and the ongoing adoption. BUT, I have a friend who is a tech teacher at a high school that has a couple of CNC mills, and gets all his stock as donations.
What I’m looking for help with (hopefully from someone else who is SolidWorks literate) is taking a SolidWorks file (or .stp or .igs, ect.) and writing the program to make it on one of his CNC mills. I remember reading an article in Machine Design a while back about CAM freeware, but can’t find that magazine now that I need it. If anyone has any guidance for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you guys have any other good information as far as learning the skills (I would love to pick up some work on the side making parts, but can’t find a shop that’s willing) to fabricate parts for a bike, I would greatly appreciate it.
One of the ideas for the Radian will be replacing the twin shock rear suspension and ugly aluminum swingarm with a monoshock and tubular steel swingarm (which I thought was a really original idea until I saw Confederate and Peregrine’s take on that.
So if you’ve actually gotten down this far in the post, undeterred by my ramblings, any advice or help you can offer on learning to make CAM files from solid models, and on fabrication in general would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Guys!
Just to give you a quick rundown of where I am: I’m new to this site, but I’ve been a big fan of the café style bikes since first seeing them start to pop up several years ago. This seems to be one of, if not the definitive source for the café community, and I’m very glad to have found it. I actually was searching for a cheap alternative to replace the leaking tank on one of my bikes, and by googling around, found a thread on making parts out of carbon fiber, that led me to a thread about making fiberglass parts here.
I turn 27 in a couple of days, and work full time as a Mechanical Engineer designing automation equipment. I’ve been a rider all my life, have had a pretty wide variety of street bikes (and more dirt bikes than I can remember) including a Honda 919 that I just sold to help cover the cost of adopting a little girl from Colombia with my wife. My wife in her infinite patience (and desire to have me out of her hair while she does her schoolwork) has allowed me to keep an 80 XS850G and an 86 XS600. As soon as I can get the headlight working and the carbs cleaned up on the triple, I’ll be using that for my commuter while I hack the little Radian to pieces to make something unique out of it.
Here comes the actual reason for the post: I use SolidWorks 2012 10 hours a day, every day, so my design/CAD skills are solid, but where I lack experience is fabrication. I’ve spent very little time actually cranking handles, and my welding skills are only suitable for anything that will never be seen by anyone but me. I don’t have a mill, bender, welder or anything fancy in the little garage that I work out of, as most of my money is tied up in the HUD home I’m rehabbing, and the ongoing adoption. BUT, I have a friend who is a tech teacher at a high school that has a couple of CNC mills, and gets all his stock as donations.
What I’m looking for help with (hopefully from someone else who is SolidWorks literate) is taking a SolidWorks file (or .stp or .igs, ect.) and writing the program to make it on one of his CNC mills. I remember reading an article in Machine Design a while back about CAM freeware, but can’t find that magazine now that I need it. If anyone has any guidance for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you guys have any other good information as far as learning the skills (I would love to pick up some work on the side making parts, but can’t find a shop that’s willing) to fabricate parts for a bike, I would greatly appreciate it.
One of the ideas for the Radian will be replacing the twin shock rear suspension and ugly aluminum swingarm with a monoshock and tubular steel swingarm (which I thought was a really original idea until I saw Confederate and Peregrine’s take on that.
So if you’ve actually gotten down this far in the post, undeterred by my ramblings, any advice or help you can offer on learning to make CAM files from solid models, and on fabrication in general would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Guys!
