I’ve been playing around with the concept of removing the power feed off of my ICD alley cat for a while. First thought was 3D printing but there’s some viability issues because of the required dimensions.
I did a quick prototype out of some oak and an old ion feed neck to see if it would affect reliability with a gravity fed hopper and surprisingly it did not. So I promptly forgot about the idea for a few months…
Fast forward to this weekend, I was cleaning out my metal shop and found a length of chromoly DOM tubing I I had leftover from a moto frame . I realized I could just make the feed out of steel.
I then did some turning on the lathe to get the tube dimensions right and after some layout, a few precise holes, a lot of filing, and careful tig welding I had the feed mostly done. Unfortunately because the base was so thin and delicate I couldn’t risk distorting it with tig, so I decided to silver solder it. Managed to get it all together without too much issue , but well over 10 hrs from start to finish.

Im 100% happy with how it turned out and as a usable proof of concept I call it a win. If anyone is interested in dimensions or anything feel free to hit me up. I’d love to find some way to make a vert feed for these available to everyone.
I did a quick prototype out of some oak and an old ion feed neck to see if it would affect reliability with a gravity fed hopper and surprisingly it did not. So I promptly forgot about the idea for a few months…
Fast forward to this weekend, I was cleaning out my metal shop and found a length of chromoly DOM tubing I I had leftover from a moto frame . I realized I could just make the feed out of steel.
I then did some turning on the lathe to get the tube dimensions right and after some layout, a few precise holes, a lot of filing, and careful tig welding I had the feed mostly done. Unfortunately because the base was so thin and delicate I couldn’t risk distorting it with tig, so I decided to silver solder it. Managed to get it all together without too much issue , but well over 10 hrs from start to finish.
Im 100% happy with how it turned out and as a usable proof of concept I call it a win. If anyone is interested in dimensions or anything feel free to hit me up. I’d love to find some way to make a vert feed for these available to everyone.

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