My learning adventure with shark 4th axis accessory

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grazinghorse
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2016 8:12 am
Location: NW Missouri
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My learning adventure with shark 4th axis accessory

Post by grazinghorse »

Thought I would share my learning experience with the 4th axis accessory. Hopefully it will help some one make a decision if they are considering purchasing or if I am making mistakes, someone will jump in and help me.

When I got into using the shark about 3-4 years ago I thought it would be easy, just push a button and poof it would be done. No one told me about the learning curve of the software and it never occurred to me the slow operation of the programs, particularly when doing detailed work. Thinking in vectors is a bit challenging for me.

The fourth axis is not too bad. I think flat and imagine it being wrapped around a tube.

The 4th axis is not a good replacement for a lathe. I have a lathe with a vega duplicator and I use a router rather than lathe chisels to rough out my flutes. This takes about 10 minutes for a 24” long flute, then I use the chisels to do finer forming. To round a square stock on the 4th axis can take 30+ minutes and that is just for the bore of the flute I have yet to figure out how to create the tap files to form tapers.

My plan is to rough out the flutes on the lathe, then run a tap file to cut 1/32 of an inch off the bore in order to precisely align the center and thickness, then engrave, carve, and or texture the surface a processes which can easily take a day or more when doing by hand.

I have the shark hd pro plus, touch pad, touch probe, and am running aspire from my laptop. I plan to use the machine for my flute making business. www.sevenwindsflutes.com.

So the first step was to mount some test work and see what happens, I viewed the shark setup video, downloaded the manuals setup the preferences and began with dowel rods.

1. First problem – aligning the tailstock with the head. Clamping takes forever and I feel precise alignment is essential. At least it is with the work I plan on doing. Rick had a great video on youtube that shows his setup running along the X-axis. I fabricated a similar one however because of the length of my flutes I needed to run on a diagonal.

2. The chuck jaws of the nova chuck will not work with my stock. They are more designed for bowls. I use 1”, 1 ¼” and 1 /12” square stock. So I went to nova’s website and called their support line. They have jaws available that accommodate square stock from about 0.30 to 1.125” (these would be perfect if you are turning pens). They are $35 with $8 shipping. However Nova has an alliance with homedepot. If you go to homedepot.com and in the search box enter this number: 204488302 you can get them for$28 and free shipping to the store closest to you.

3. The manual (p24) suggests turning 1 ½” dowels during the learning process. The chuck will not hold anything smaller than 1.70”. Use 2” dowels.

4. Next problem was the control panel 2.1. I would set the head and the tail stock – easy no problem. However when I returned the gantry to the head if I accidentally move the mouse off of the return button only while the gantry was in motion, I noticed that it shifted along the –x axis. Hence it would not be in the home position and I would have to reset the head position. This is not a Big deal, I just have to very careful not to touch the mouse while the gantry is in motion. NWA thinks it is a software bug and is referring it to their software developers.

5. Control panel 2.1 – I cannot stress the importance of setting the preferences! Particularly the Lathe cut depth offset manual p20. I really do not understand this it seems to be some kind of a fudge factor. My initial cuts were too deep it took several cut and measure trys to get it adjusted. My first rounding attempt over cut the corners by about 1/8” I finally came up with what works for me was setting it at 0.90 and I rather suspect this will need fine tuning.


In closing all and all I am very satisfied with the purchase because it expands my creativity. It is very well built with the only downside being the mickey mouse tail stock. I’ll do my best to add posts on my learning adventures with it and PLEASE if anyone else sees me doing something wrong let me know.

Rando
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Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:24 pm
Location: Boise, ID
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Re: My learning adventure with shark 4th axis accessory

Post by Rando »

Thanks for the thorough description of your experiences so far, grazinghorse. I look forward to hearing more!

For the taper, assuming you use the same taper angle, I wonder if putting the head and tail on a piece of sloped material (wood? metal?) would give you that? Some of the other CNC companies whose machines include 4th axis devices have them adjustable to sloping angles for tapered spindles. IIRC, I think the Legacy Arty does this.

Regards,

Thom
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ThomR.com Creative tools and photographic art
A proud member of the Pacific Northwest CNC Club (now on Facebook)

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