- Joined
- Apr 23, 2011
- Messages
- 177
- Points
- 28
Came up with the idea last weekend, started off trying to cut a circle out of some styrene sheet I had and ended up ordering some acrylic rounds off Amazon.
Laid out the coins and made a template for marking holes on the acrylic, then center punched each, 1/16" bit drilled, then reamed out to 1/4" where I used a stepper bit to drill out for each coin. The nickel and half dollar were a tad smaller than the hole so I put a couple strips of some 1/16 wide VHB around them and snugged thm right up while securing them in place.
I used a piece of 1/4" brass strip curved to fit the circumference and a doubler at the joint to keep it solid. Then soldered a couple 1/4" long pieces of 1/4" brass tube as feet. However, the feet didn't foot to well so I cut a couple pieces of smaller diameter brass tube to slide into them for better stability.
The 6 pins around it are 1/8" copper tube, thought it was brass until I polished it, and wish I'd used rod instead as it would have been more visible.
I used ShoeGoo to glue the brass ring to the acrylic. Worked fine, excess was easy to remove once dry but there is a small spot where it looks like it capillary'd in between the layers. As thick as this stuff is I'm guessing it must have been a reaction or something, it doesn't suck in such a small crack.
Overall extremely happy with how it turned out, this was like the 4th try, the acrylic kept cracking drilling the coin holes.
Looking up there's little imperfections, if I had more time and patience I would have gone for a 5th try, but overall looks really good.
If you like soldering wires, you should try brass, it's fun!
Laid out the coins and made a template for marking holes on the acrylic, then center punched each, 1/16" bit drilled, then reamed out to 1/4" where I used a stepper bit to drill out for each coin. The nickel and half dollar were a tad smaller than the hole so I put a couple strips of some 1/16 wide VHB around them and snugged thm right up while securing them in place.
I used a piece of 1/4" brass strip curved to fit the circumference and a doubler at the joint to keep it solid. Then soldered a couple 1/4" long pieces of 1/4" brass tube as feet. However, the feet didn't foot to well so I cut a couple pieces of smaller diameter brass tube to slide into them for better stability.
The 6 pins around it are 1/8" copper tube, thought it was brass until I polished it, and wish I'd used rod instead as it would have been more visible.
I used ShoeGoo to glue the brass ring to the acrylic. Worked fine, excess was easy to remove once dry but there is a small spot where it looks like it capillary'd in between the layers. As thick as this stuff is I'm guessing it must have been a reaction or something, it doesn't suck in such a small crack.
Overall extremely happy with how it turned out, this was like the 4th try, the acrylic kept cracking drilling the coin holes.
Looking up there's little imperfections, if I had more time and patience I would have gone for a 5th try, but overall looks really good.
If you like soldering wires, you should try brass, it's fun!
