Barton Dring the creator of Makerslide sent his Kickstarter supporters news that the first batch of Makerslides has been received and will be shipping soon. Dring posted an update which talked about his trip to the aluminum extruder plant to take delivery of the first batch of Makerslides. From reading the report it sounds like the visit would have been very interesting on it’s own, even if it didn’t include delivery of the much sought after rails.
If I understood the process correctly the extrusion process involves preheating an 8 diameter 3′ long Billet of aluminum up to 1000 degrees and then “smooshing” it through a giant machine similar to a Play-Doh fun factory. Then the metal is allowed to cool on long racks before it is cut into much smaller pieces, heated treated in an oven and (more…)