Sunday, August 22, 2010

Assembling the frame

Here's what got done last night.



I fit the pieces together and broke out a piece of plexi for the bottom. This was a quick test fit to check my measurements. Note that it just fits within the frame...



...so I had to notch out the corners to leave room for the vertical pieces to fit. Nothing fancy, just took the Dremel (generic rotary tool, actually) with a grinding drum to it. Sorry for the crappy pic, but you can see what I did.



Duct tape is a wonderful thing. Here you can see the bottom taped together (it will be riveted in the end) with the plexi sitting in place and the vertical pieces...



...and the same with the top frame taped together. Looking good so far. With all the test-fitting done, it was time to rivet the plexi to the bottom.



You have to be careful working with plexi. You can take all the precautions in the world, but your drill bit can still pull it up and crack it. I was almost done drilling when this happened, right next to a clamp (removed that one before taking the pic). After a smoke break to consider my course of action, I decided that even though this wouldn't be seen, it would bug the hell out of me if I didn't replace it, considering I have plenty more plexi lying around. Also, I'd never forgive myself if it cracked the rest of the way through.



Having decided, here is the new piece, safely drilled and riveted in place.

Right now, I'm working on drilling out the vertical pieces and will rivet the whole frame together. I thought of taking pics of the process, but it's very tedious and boring. Basically, it involves drilling the top/bottom corners, fitting the vertical piece into the appropriate corner to mark the hole, then drilling the vertical. I tried clamping it down to drill through all at once, but it wasn't going so well; this is longer, but easier. I'll post one pic when it's all together and I'm ready to move on to something else.

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