Remember that age old adage? You know....."measure twice, cut once".............well. Every once in awhile there is an exception to that rule! That exception comes when you don't screw down your jig tight enough, and the roto-zip starts to wonder!! Turns out, I have messed up my SECOND middle ring. Damn the bad luck.
I leave for Florida for work on Sunday, so aside from possibly painting the pieces I have done, don't except any updates for awhile!
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
couple of photos!
Here's a few more photos with the top attached this time. The center ring is the only thing left before it's finished. I will probably get some black spray paint just to make it look 'nicer'!!!
It's a bird?......it's a plane? NAWWW It's my R2 frame!!
If.........you do not follow that age old adage of "measure twice...cut once." Then you will do what I did, and mess something up! If you look at the photos below, you will see where I made that 8th ring about 1/2" too short. Damn. Fortunately, it was a easy fix.
Next, I proceeded to draw out my angles. With the assistance of matt, he said to just get the angles close. Well, upon further examination, I don't think my method of measuring was as 'accurate' as i'd have like it to been. Therefore, I thought of this.........Since the plans were originally drawn 1 : 1, then the print should be pretty damn close, even though its smaller.......with that knowledge, I nailed (yes) the paper to the board on the 90 degree mark and the 0 degree mark, I then took a ruler and drew out my angles. The beauty of this is that they all perfectly line up now!!
Finally, started on the routing and completed ALL (yes, all) of it. Which I feel like is making up for lost time from yesterday!!. Here are a few more random pictures I took.
The only things I have left to do is finish the center ring, and cut out the circular opening in the top piece of the frame which is what I am about to go do now after dinner! These rings should go fairly quickly with the help of my fancy jig for the roto-zip! And now, I present to you, the first real look at my future droid!!
Next, I proceeded to draw out my angles. With the assistance of matt, he said to just get the angles close. Well, upon further examination, I don't think my method of measuring was as 'accurate' as i'd have like it to been. Therefore, I thought of this.........Since the plans were originally drawn 1 : 1, then the print should be pretty damn close, even though its smaller.......with that knowledge, I nailed (yes) the paper to the board on the 90 degree mark and the 0 degree mark, I then took a ruler and drew out my angles. The beauty of this is that they all perfectly line up now!!
Finally, started on the routing and completed ALL (yes, all) of it. Which I feel like is making up for lost time from yesterday!!. Here are a few more random pictures I took.
The only things I have left to do is finish the center ring, and cut out the circular opening in the top piece of the frame which is what I am about to go do now after dinner! These rings should go fairly quickly with the help of my fancy jig for the roto-zip! And now, I present to you, the first real look at my future droid!!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Bad planning!
Well.....let me tell you, there is nothing worse than setting a goal to accomplish for the day, and to not only come up short, but to come up WAY short!! When I started yesterday evening, I told myself that I wanted to get the remaining two quarter rings cut (1/4" and 1/2"(how I forgot to do TWO of them when I made the first is beyond me)), cut the 1/2" middle ring, redo my dado cuts to make them 3/4" (on the uprights)and then get at least half of the router work done....
Well, let me be the first to tell you that this did NOT happen! The first thing I started was to enlarge my dado cuts. This is something I have been dreading as I am not doing them with a dado blade but carefully using a table saw. They actually went quicker than I expected and now, the parts fit flush! Next. I used a jig saw to cut out the two quarter rings. That went fairly smooth as well....and had to do minimal sanding (have I mentioned I hate sanding?)!
Next, I moved on the bottom base plate. After talking with Matt Hendrix (Hi Matt!) and getting information about the angles for the slots (basically, instead of 17.6 degrees, just round to the nearest degree), I began to lay out my lines......This however, took a LOT longer than expected and next thing I knew....it was dark! Guess that router will need to wait till tonight.
So my goal for this evening is to get half the router work done and the middle ring cut. Hopefully this will be a little more optimistic!
One final note. I did a preliminary assembly of just the uprights with the quarter rings....everything seemed to fit nicely EXCEPT the eighth ring. Not sure if I have done something wrong or I have made a lot of pieces wrong, but it does appear to be too small. Maybe I will get lucky and when it actually assembles it will go right, but I am crossing my fingers!! Have a good day!
Well, let me be the first to tell you that this did NOT happen! The first thing I started was to enlarge my dado cuts. This is something I have been dreading as I am not doing them with a dado blade but carefully using a table saw. They actually went quicker than I expected and now, the parts fit flush! Next. I used a jig saw to cut out the two quarter rings. That went fairly smooth as well....and had to do minimal sanding (have I mentioned I hate sanding?)!
Next, I moved on the bottom base plate. After talking with Matt Hendrix (Hi Matt!) and getting information about the angles for the slots (basically, instead of 17.6 degrees, just round to the nearest degree), I began to lay out my lines......This however, took a LOT longer than expected and next thing I knew....it was dark! Guess that router will need to wait till tonight.
So my goal for this evening is to get half the router work done and the middle ring cut. Hopefully this will be a little more optimistic!
One final note. I did a preliminary assembly of just the uprights with the quarter rings....everything seemed to fit nicely EXCEPT the eighth ring. Not sure if I have done something wrong or I have made a lot of pieces wrong, but it does appear to be too small. Maybe I will get lucky and when it actually assembles it will go right, but I am crossing my fingers!! Have a good day!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
More of the frame.....
Well.........it's been a LONG time since I have worked on my R2. A lot of it was that I really wanted to go all aluminum. Since I 'thought' that is what I wanted, I decided to do some more research and determine if this was (for me) the best cause of action. After a long thought out process, I decided that, for right now, I could not justify the added cost of going all aluminum. So with that in mind, I started to work on more of my frame today!
For starters.....I wasn't too sure how to make a fairly round board that would require minimal sanding (I HATE sanding!). So....I had to engineer this little jig that would allow me to cut almost perfectly round.
As you can see, after it was all done, it was pretty darn close!!! Next. I decided I would make the uprights. They're fairly simple and straight forward. Unfortunately however, my printer was out of ink, so I couldn't print off a small page to give me the dimensions........so I did what anyone would do.....I hand drew them!!! I didn't need it to be accurate, well......except for the measurements! Now I am confident to say that these pieces came out beautifully!!!!
And finally! You can see a set of all the parts that I have now(Except the uprights, which I am not sure why I didn't include them). I still need to do one more 1/2" half wing, and the 1/4" half wing. Those two pieces, along with the 1/2" middle ring will complete the frame and then we can move to assembly!! One thing to note as well, that......as of this time, I still have not enlarged my dado cuts to 3/4". There was a small error on the plans that I discovered and now, must go back and enlarge them! Fortunately, that's fairly simple!! Hope to get some more done tomorrow!
For starters.....I wasn't too sure how to make a fairly round board that would require minimal sanding (I HATE sanding!). So....I had to engineer this little jig that would allow me to cut almost perfectly round.
As you can see, after it was all done, it was pretty darn close!!! Next. I decided I would make the uprights. They're fairly simple and straight forward. Unfortunately however, my printer was out of ink, so I couldn't print off a small page to give me the dimensions........so I did what anyone would do.....I hand drew them!!! I didn't need it to be accurate, well......except for the measurements! Now I am confident to say that these pieces came out beautifully!!!!
And finally! You can see a set of all the parts that I have now(Except the uprights, which I am not sure why I didn't include them). I still need to do one more 1/2" half wing, and the 1/4" half wing. Those two pieces, along with the 1/2" middle ring will complete the frame and then we can move to assembly!! One thing to note as well, that......as of this time, I still have not enlarged my dado cuts to 3/4". There was a small error on the plans that I discovered and now, must go back and enlarge them! Fortunately, that's fairly simple!! Hope to get some more done tomorrow!
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