I’m so ready to test run!! I’ll provide feedback for sure.
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Awesome, thanks!
I’ll be picking up the rest of the fixturing stuff at the DXL club meet up in LA this weekend. Someone was kind enough to run to where the auction I bought them from was held and take possession for me. I need those to make sure I’ve got good work holding in the mill to cut the BPT profile.
Past that, I just gotta clear the last 3 orders in my current queue and then I’ll be ready to make chips on the Queens!
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No worries from my point of view you got time and not expecting a rush order on the proto runs but thank you so much for communicating along the way what’s going on. Really love the updates and transparency
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Agreed. I’m okay with delays (within reason) as long as there is communication along the way.
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The later units will definitely take a while to get out since I don’t have control over external vendors. If I’m sending out for polishing or bead blasting or even specialty anodization, rush order isn’t really a thing lol
This is the primary location to get the most up-to-date info on the goings on with the project so it’s where I talk about where I’m at the most 
I’m having a lot of fun talking through things and showing the process. There’s a small element of “I need to keep the people that backed me updated,” sure, but it’s much more that I enjoy talking to all of you. The amount of design knowledge I’ve gotten from this community in the last few months is insane, and I’m having a lot of fun putting it into practice!
Absolutely. No potential delays I can currently see outside of the potential for the machines going down for some shop rearrangement. We’re upgrading a bunch of stuff around the shop and at some point a 5-axis and a new wire-EDM are gonna show up, but I’m not exactly sure when.
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Definitely hit my goal for preorders! I picked up the last of the fixtures at the DXL meet on Sunday.
Current totals:
22 orders
25 units
Orders close on Friday, if anybody knows a few people who want to jump on last minute and hit the 10% discount. May as well go ahead and knock the number down to 30 total units ordered to hit it, too 
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It is the last day people, get your preorder in… cause titanium and BPT and everything. 
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What a terrible time to be broke lol
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I feel you on that
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Any updates on this project?
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Guess I haven’t been quite so talky here since Christmas, have I? Sorry about that
All the fixtures are designed, all the tools have arrived, and I’m on the last of the 3rd party client designs for which I’ve received a deposit. I’m running a little behind, but it shouldn’t be long until I’m making chips.
Once this last order is shipped, attention goes to the Queen. First early units will be ready in the next 2-3 weeks, and all of the earlies will be shipped by the end of April.
Late cycle units are going to need to wait to be sent until all the various vendors get back to me with the more advanced finishing techniques I want to try out. I’ll be at the mercy of whatever lead times they’ve got, so I don’t have estimations on those just yet.
I’ll make a longer post showing off the CAD/CAM stuff for the fixtures soon
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Oh! One other thing - I had enough deposit money, so I found a company who was willing to work with me on a reasonably priced stamping die to cut brake pads out of various rubbers.
I know that there were a few people who didn’t care for the idea of putting cork in a titanium throw, so I’m actively looking for alternatives that are deemed more worthwhile by those who dislike cork. Primary concern is that rubber might grab too readily or be too aggressive with the kind of surface area inherent to the brake pad profile, but I thought it would be a good idea to at least try a few things out.
It shipped today, so I’ll be sending out a pair of each material I work with to see what people like best.
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People that want less response could always flow permatex gray.
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Could do the old freehand single pad trick
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I’ve seen other people do that, yeah. I just want to try and find something that is a direct replacement for the cork that can be used universally and easily. We’ll see what falls out ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve seen that as well. We’ll see how people decide to use them, but I’d like something that can be a simple swap in that “just works™” in a default configuration for the Queen Bee. If they could work as an alternative for people who wanna dig out their old Confusions, Cold Fusions, or even the OG BBGT, so much the better.
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If someone can find a compound that plays like broke-in cork but lasts longer, that would be excellent. I am all in with cork, but a less expensive alternative is defiantly a good move.
I need to try the print pads @AudreySickburn sent me. Thanks again 
Right now all my cork pads are good though… I need to throw more and get them worn out.
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Any updates? Sorry, if you’ve communicated on discord. Haven’t been there as of late.
Are we close to the early run units?
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Alright. Taxes are done. Update time. Sorry for the delays on that.
I’ll start with a brief timeline update here: No chips made just yet. I had some family medical stuff pop up that sucked most of my free time and energy up for a few weeks. Not much more to say at the moment about the medical stuff other than everything is fine now. Might share a bit more later on, but for the moment there’s not much to tell. The stress kinda knocked the fight out of me as far as staying after hours until 3AM goes, but I’m back in it now. I’m obviously running a bit behind as I’ve missed my goal of having the first few units ready by now, but I’ll still be shipping all earlies by end of April.
I’ll be cutting the fixtures at some point this week while I finish the last client order I still need to get out the door, and then I’ll be turning my attention to the Queen Bee. I have 50Lb of grade 5 titanium in the mail and on its way to me from Maine as we speak. The ETA on that is the 20th, and I’ll start by processing it into stock material. Lots of places wanted to charge me upwards of 10$ a cut, so I’ll just do it myself.
I have the programs for the lathe and mill ready to go! I even managed to get myself up and running with a more advanced CAM simulation model, though that’s more for my day job than this. Still super useful, though.
Anyway, I wanted to show off some of the programming stuff. First a picture to confuse you:
Behold the machining sequence. This gigantic mess of spaghetti is what’s gonna cut our wings. Or at least the parts that are cut in the lathe. What’s super nice about my CAM program is that I can simulate what’s gonna happen in the machine.
It is perhaps a little easier to see in this shot where material is being removed with the model in place. It even goes as far as figuring out what material may or may not be touched by the paths I create so I can predict how well the theoretical stuff will match what pops out the machine:
For example you can see a thin blue line inside the cup where the radius of my insert isn’t quite small enough to cut away all the material I want.
The simulation models also let me create my fixtures for use in the machine! I created models for all of the relevant tools and fixtures purchased with the deposit money, most notably the step collets and expansion collets I needed to use for this project:
Then I can toss those things into my CAM program and mount the workpiece into them:
And further than that, make sure that I won’t crash by telling me where my tools are going to end up like so:
And allow me to see what the final result should look like in the machine:
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I guess this whole thing was a bit too long… Here’s some more:
The simulation tools available to me are a huge shortcut because it allows me to be more certain that what comes out of the machine is going to be correct. I won’t run the tools into the machine or the part, nothing that shouldn’t be cut will be cut, and save for setup problems the final result should be just about perfect.
I’ve designed the expansion collets to hold a lot deeper into these than I have for other models because of the extreme undercut:
My hope is that by holding across that gap I won’t need to hold with nearly as much pressure as I did with my first prototypes. This should solve the issue shown here where there is a slight witness mark where the machine marks from machining the first side don’t quite perfectly meet those from the second:
One last thing: I wanted to get some opinions from people here. I’d like to mark these units as prototypes somehow, and seeing as I have access to a laser marker I figure it’ll be good to use. I want to know how people think these should be marked. First thoughts are to include text simlilar to “Queen Bee - Proto Run” and then a unit number. I don’t know if the unit number is strictly necessary, but serializing them might be useful?
I’ve got a couple different places the marking might go, so there’s a poll below and I’d love to hear if anybody has thoughts outside of it.
First option - Under the brake pad. Nice and hidden, but still there:
Second option - On the BPT spokes. Visible but small. The idea would be to have 2 rings of text. The laser marker has better layout tools that I’d use to get the letter locations perfectly placed and it can create microlettering. Here’s a rough mockup:
Third option - Prominently shown at the bottom of the cup:
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