Obviously, as it is a 3D structure with overhangs, it cannot be milled out of a solid block and would be very wasteful of material if it could. Instead I made it out of three pieces of 6mm Perspex sheet. I always think of this as being pretty flat but in fact its thickness varied by about 0.25mm across a six inch square cut from a larger sheet. This wasn't a problem however.
The first problem I had was getting the dimensions from ArtOfIllusion. For the other bits I have been clicking on sub components of the object to get the size and position. In this case the model seems to have been constructed in a different way so I could not select sub parts. Also there seems to be no rulers or dimensions in AOI and the grid labels are poor. In the end I redesigned it in Visio taking measurements from the motor itself. The shape of mine is a bit simpler but I think it holds the motor in the right place so it should work.
Milling these three parts was straightforward, the hard part was drilling the holes along the plane of the sheet. There are four M3 clearance holes which are 24mm deep. These are very hard to drill in Perspex without getting the drill stuck and very time consuming. The way I did it was to make a paper template with cross hairs in Visio. I cut it out and aligned it with the edge to be drilled. I then marked the centre by drilling a few mm with a 0.5mm drill in a hand held pin vice. I then drilled the holes using a very slow drill in a drill press and the piece in an improvised drill vice. I started with a 2mm drill then opened them out with 2.5mm and 3mm drills.
You can only drill a few mm at a time before the drill starts to bind because the swarf cloggs the bit and then the Perpex melts and sets again incarcerating it. You can't then turn the drill backwards or forwards. The first time this happened I thought I was going to have to smash the workpiece to recover the drill and start again. However, I did find a less drastic way to get the drill out. I put it in a spare chuck which is the good old fashioned type with a chuck key. I tightened this as much as I could, rested the workpiece on top of vice jaws with the chuck below and tapped it with a hammer. This does work, I had to do it several times.
You have to use a pecking action while drilling. I drill until I hear the Perspex squeak which indicates the onset of binding. I then back out and brush off the swarf and repeat. Very tedious, perhaps a lubricant would help but I have no idea what to use on Perspex.
To fasten the pieces together I chose M2.5 screws and decided to tap the Perspex. The only problem there is that I have a set of large taps that go down to M3 and a set of small taps that go up to M2. I thought tapping M3 in 6mm Perspex was likely to crack it so I decided to try using the screws to cut their own thread. That was a nightmare with binding and the heads shearing.
Anyway, eventually I got it done and am quite pleased with the result.
At some point I will mount a drill vice on my X-Y table, add a laser centre finder and create a highly accurate semi-automatic drill press. Hopefully I can monitor the motor current to detect the onset of binding and make the pecking automatic.
Now I need to do some lathe work to make the moving parts, barrel and nozzle.
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