Zero to seven in one day.

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Zero to seven in one day.

Postby William Bagwell » Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:14 pm

Bat houses that is! And if the machine runs all night I should have about eight more waiting on me in the morning :grin:

Must clarify that these are just the outer shells and not complete bat houses... But at long last MY MOLD RAN!!1! Not quite as 'cute' as I was hoping for so I will need to work on a few things to improve the curb appeal for humans before its next run. Pretty sure the bats will like it just the same.

Will try to get some pictures up tomorrow evening and have one complete with baffles by this weekend.
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby BrackishBatter » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:42 pm

Looking forward to the pics. I assume this is a 5 sided extruded plastic box that the baffles will be mounted into?
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby William Bagwell » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:14 am

BrackishBatter wrote:Looking forward to the pics. I assume this is a 5 sided extruded plastic box that the baffles will be mounted into?


Six sided as it comes out of the mold, will remove the bottom with a router. These are rotational molded which uses powdered plastic and rotating the mold inside an oven. The shape of a bat house could easily be adapted to extrusion blow molding but the tooling costs would be way out of my league. Talking luxury car range or even a small house :eek: But you could knock em out in a hurry. Probably have cycle times under one minute!

Already have a bunch of pictures of my mold up, website is in my profile and click on "Documentation of building the mold".
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby William Bagwell » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:55 pm

Going to link this until I find out what the size limit is on displaying inline?
http://www.mysecondbathouse.com/houses/firsthouses.jpg (480 KB)

Using my old work truck for scale and left to right this is number 1,2,3,5 and 7 out of the mold. First one is scrap powder as is customary for the very first part out of a mold. Powdered out severely and will only be about half as thick as intended. Will make a great gauge of just how thin they can possibly be made.

Next is a dark brown, it also powdered out a bit but seems to be close to full weight. Not salable but I should be able to use it personally. Followed by a medium gray which was almost fully cooked. The missing number 4 is a slightly lighter shade of gray and is still at my work. 5 is beige and the missing number 6 was re-grind black. A bit darker than the scrap powder house on the left.

Numbed seven is sandstone and will cost a bit more. Normal plastic is bought in railcar loads verses single pallets of the bagged stone effect plastic. Makes a huge difference in price. During the night they ran 4 more in black and 7 more gray bat houses. (supposed to stop at exactly 5 of each...) Glad it was the gray they over ran since they look better. Also ran one more stone effect in wheat before they took my mold down. Think the total for all colors including the freebie scrap powder one is 19.
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby BrackishBatter » Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:10 am

Sharp looking boxes.

I enjoyed your site. Do you have a link to threads here about your design? I thought I pretty well kept up with this site.

I spend a lot of time on the DIY forums at reefkeeper/aquarium sites and greatly enjoy watching folks create masterpieces from the mundane, and I've created a few myself along the way. Your build scratched the same itch.

What are the dimensions? UV-resistant plastic? What are the thicknesses of the thickest/thinnest? You suggested an indentation in the back wall had a purpose. . . mounting the baffles?

This would be a great solution for my parents' farm. I'd happily buy them 6-8 for Christmas if the price was right. I don't want to break any forum rules/etiquitte, so I'll email you.

To move them commercially and appeal to a larger audience, I would suggest a kit including the baffles and hardware, and/or design and demonstrate a reproducible standard baffle design using readily-available inexpensive materials. Youtube is your friend.

Shame you couldn't also cast sheets with sufficient texture to serve as baffles. THin, lightweight, impervious to the elements/urine/humidity, cheap. I am forever looking .
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby William Bagwell » Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:04 am

(Edited to add in what I left out this morning)

Introduced myself back in August last year in this thread. intro-and-few-questions-t893.html As you can see my design has evolved a tiny bit since my speculation in that thread.

Outside dimensions are 30 1/4" tall, 17 1/4" wide, 8 1/8" deep and all the plastic has UV stabilizers added. Exactly what and how much I don't know... Pretty sure the pigments them selves add to UV resistance to varying degrees. Intended wall thickness is 3/16 but will be thicker in corners and slightly thinner in flat areas.

The indention in the back is a 22 1/2 degree french cleat for hanging the house. Another of the many things I need to test in the next few weeks. If it does not latch as well as I hope it will be changed to a 45 degree. Made it at the shallower angle because I was worried about it being difficult to de-mold the part. See now there is no problem in that area and wish I had made it steeper.

And gosh <drags toe in dirt> my first sales inquiry :grin: Like you I don't want to push any limits, so will await Joe's clarification on this.

Have several ideas about how to market my houses including offering just the shells with instructions on various baffles. Obviously BCI certification is a very important first step. As I mentioned in my email to you earlier the shells unlike completed houses can be offered wholesale to other builders. Looks like I will need an in between price.

And I already have two ideas for all plastic baffles. One involving roto molding and sand... The other is trying to duplicate expanded metal as expanded plastic. Google "expanded metal" and think 'expanded plastic'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt2MY2LpkuE

And if you or some one beats me too it... Oh, well Ideas are cheap. I have thousands more :wink:
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Last edited by William Bagwell on Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby Terry Lobdell » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:48 pm

Wow! Very nice! I'll be anxious to see how these work!
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Re: Zero to seven in one day.

Postby Joe Spencer » Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:30 pm

Very nice indeed William! :thumbup:
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