DaveEstey
DaveEstey UberDork
6/4/14 4:25 p.m.

I have this wing profile. I need a dozen or so aluminum profiles of this cut out to make my wing. How do I get this converted into a file to send to the water jet guys?

Kenny_McCormic
Kenny_McCormic UberDork
6/4/14 4:32 p.m.

Pick a water jet guy and ask him? It's going to vary from machine to machine. I seem to remember the CNC plasma table I used to have access to being able to run bitmaps.

aircooled
aircooled UltimaDork
6/4/14 5:20 p.m.

It might need to be converted to a vector (.eps I would guess), which can be pretty easily done in Illustrator.

My concern is that the graphic, as shown, is pretty rough and the resulting vector might not be the precise profile. It would need to be smoothed a bit. Even if they can run a bitmap, I would be a bit concerned about that (how it averages the roughness)

I would guess you could do that as a bezier curve shape with 4 (maybe 5) control points. It's a pretty simple shape actually.

Do you have a higher quality image? I can convert it for you. I can do my best to smooth it also, but that might have to wait a day or so.

Sput
Sput Reader
6/4/14 6:16 p.m.

If you are near Lakeland or Mulberry, I have some folks local.

travellering
travellering New Reader
6/4/14 7:39 p.m.

You may be better served to leave the gurney flap off the wing and weld it on later. We just had some aluminium parts for a frame waterjetted, and the surface on the cut faces was rough enough that polishing it smooth might wipe out a thin feature like that.

Dr. Hess
Dr. Hess MegaDork
6/4/14 7:59 p.m.

The water jet machines will usually read about anything that is a vector format. .DWG's are pretty standard, if I recall, and what I use. A lot of software can write or convert to that. The waterjet people will convert it for you for an additional price, usually.

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