DCB Season 3 - Garden Sundial - S3E4

Just in time for summer, a Garden Sundial is a perfect focal point for your outdoor garden or a compliment for the fire pit you build.



With the Sundial, we used the plate marker attachment to engrave the details on the top. This accessory is the perfect addition to your machine as it opens a lot of details to add to your cuts that plasma cannot do.



The other machine we brought into the mix was the MasterPipe Compact pipe cutter. This was able to handle the middle portion of the sun dial with cutting the slots for the sides to insert into.



Cut Parameters: (Top)

• Table: Torchmate 4400
• Plasma Cutter: FlexCut 80
• Material: 11ga Mild Steel
• Amperage: 40 amps
• Cutting Speed: 108 ipm

Cut Parameters: (Pipe)

• Machine: Vernon Tool MasterPipe Compact
• Plasma Cutter: FlexCut 80
• Material: 3" dia 1/4" wall
• Amperage: 80 amps
• Cutting Speed: 65 ipm

With the plate marker, getting the design on the top looking correct was the goal. The major portion to get the sun dial correct was to make sure the Gnomon (indicator) was the proper length and angle for this hemisphere. Once all that was dialed into the TMCAD, making the rest was pretty straight forward.



On the machine, we were able to duplicate the quantity of the stand without requiring the TMCAD to do the array/nesting of those parts.







Unfortunately, Sun Dials don't recognize Daylight Savings.

 

That's pretty cool, can you post up a good resource where we can find info on calculating the angle for our lat?

 

Also, wouldn't it be possible to rotate the dial and make a second engraving on the inside for daylight savings?

 

Try this one http://sundials.org/index.php/teachers-corner/sundial-mathematics and this one help you find your latitude https://www.suncalc.org.