Thanks mr f, much appreciated

Thanks Dan, glad your enjoying them, good call on laser cutting, certainly faster than the mill and as you say cheaper than castings if you can actually get them.

Thanks much appreciated. As you will see I have pushed mine pretty hard for a bench top mill, the only thing that has really given trouble is the nylon high low gear, which I have stripped more than once. If you haven’t seen my video on how to change it, watch it so you know what you will be up for. This seems to be common to a lot of benchtop mills, I think the nylon gear protects the other gears. Other than that I really do like it and certainly haven’t regretted the purchase. The difference with the 46b is it has fixed gears rather than variable speed so will have much better torque at low speed which is a good thing but is limited to 6 speeds including 1600 rpm you will probably never use so will most likely be too fast or slow most of the time. The variable speed of the 28v is certainly convenient, just being able to adjust the speed mid cut when your cooking a cutter but comes at the cost of a lack of torque at low speed. Anyway hope this doesn’t put you off but there is always pros and cons with all machines so your better informed. Good luck with your upcoming purchase I’m sure you will enjoy it.

@@SS-Workshop Thanks for the insight, A weak point built in to the drivetrain is a good idea, especially if the sacrificial gear is inexpencive, just a shame its not in a more convenient spot, I was leaning towards the 28V due to its higher speeds as I'll be ripping atoms off of Aluminium for a good amount of time for my Atro-photography upgrades. Seeing you have great results from mild steel surely alayed any reservation's I had about it being a light weight... Thanks Again

Thanks, Your right about that one wrong move. I had to make a replacement for the failed driver wheel where I slipped up from last time but luckily all went smoothly this time.

Good idea with the laser cutting, that would get the same result if not better I would have thought. My boiler is from scratch, designed to Aussie model engineering standard, the only trick is getting the copper and designing it to match. I’m hoping to use a large copper tube and fold it out as it’s about 4” diameter, rather than sheet but haven’t confirmed a source yet.

@@SS-Workshop Have you checked to see how close the Juliet would match your design? Only reason I ask is im planning on building one shortly as either an NZR A or L. Being 3.5" it might come close. If not that perhaps a rob roy. Im redesigning to run at 100psi also. Im will be building out of flat sheet as it means you dont have to add extra copper to the firebox as you do when folding out of pipe.

I will check, but from memory they are a bit to far off, designing my own doesn’t seem to hard and I have been referring to original Juliet and Tich designs for basic layout to give myself a better chance of it working and then applying design parameters from the standard. Assume 100 PSI would help performance. Do you know of a source for the flat sheet copper in small quantity, kormax or little metals? Having a joint and rolling it looks easy enough otherwise my copper pipe needed to come from Aussie.

SS Workshop I priced both the other day and kormax was a lot cheaper (around $600 from memory) but also didn’t have the correct sizes in thicker for back head, throat plate etc. I would have to go for a thicker plate but that’s not the end of the world. A friend and I are looking at building 3 juliet boilers. He brings in a lot of gear from the uk for work in containers so we are thinking of bringing in all the copper direct as it is a bit cheaper. Then I will just laser cut the formers over here for flanging etc.

Great to know, will talk to them when I’m back designing the final boiler. The UK is a good call they do seem to be cheaper, I got most of my cast iron from over there. I assume UK boiler materials are just as acceptable as local, the Aussie model boiler standard referenced the AS/NZS for copper quality so have been hesitant about exploring that option.