Luisifer wrote:
Back to the roots.
I am thinking about usage of wood for precise things. Is that way "thinkable" at "home work"?
Absolutely. Wood has always been a really nice material to machine. The basic ante could be a shop full of woodworking tools, but realistically a CNC milling machine can do 95% of what needs to be done -- my 3040T cost around $700. Of course, there are the usual subtractive machining set of annoyances, including part clamping (a 3D printer can be a handy tool for making custom jigs for clamping). There is also the annoyance that the controllers on most small CC mills are dirt stupid parallel-port interfaces, so it takes a little doing to set-up.
Few months/years back i noticed article about near to complete delignification of wood for going to be harder than metal.
(fast searching in EN lang. and it is maybe described here too: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/accountsmr.1c00075 )
Interesting article. An approximation to the "polymer infusion" approach is easy... I think it's called "painting." Kidding aside, even bare wood is pretty stable (especially plywood), but humidity is an issue, so properly sealing appropriately dried wood is critical. Different woods vary a lot in terms of mechanical properties, so careful choice of wood also is important.
With other parameters (minimal thermal expansion) it seems to be ideal way to make perfect machine parts (camera parts too).
Thermal expansion isn't a huge problem for wood -- moisture is. That said, the PLA plastic used in commodity 3D printing is not terrible either, and additive building is definitely easier (if slower and less precise) than subtractive. I've built lots of large-format camera parts out of wood, but for smaller cameras, 3D printing makes more sense. BTW, the wood-fiber-enhanced 3D printable plastics are sort-of the worst of both, not the best.... In fact, most of the doped plastics do less well because whatever material is used to dope it is reducing the bonding strength for the plastic. For example, carbon fiber PLA may make slightly stronger and more stable extruded lines, but printed layers are more likely to separate.
/noticed article: https://www-osel-cz.translate.goog/9872-drevo-namisto-oceli-nebo-slitin.html?_x_tr_sl=cs&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=cs&_x_tr_pto=wapp /
No luck on accessing that page?