Day 27 and 28 - Neck rings and struts

(Originally posted on August 25th, 2013)

Working on the neck rings now, got the bottom ring notches cut out, along with one notch each in the middle and upper ring.  This was to align a single strut; I intend to put another one directly across from it to make sure everything's aligned exactly.  I want to be really careful with my measurements on this one.

The struts are 28cm in length; I gave myself about 1cm of wiggle room before I attach the neck bin top, which I have yet to cut.

The next day, I got all 24 notches cut out for the three rings with the jigsaw.  I intentionally made the ring notches shallower than the struts (10mm x 20mm), because I want to file the extra millis into a slight angle for better alignment.

Before filing the notches down, I test-aligned them loosely with the struts.  Of course, at this point, there's the gap between the strut and the edge of the ring notch due to the angle.

I went and got a file at Lowe's that's the perfect width for the notches and began to file an angle onto them.  I marked a line that's a few more millis beyond my original measurement.  I've only managed to file down the eight notches on the top ring before my arm fell off.  I'll continue on with the other 16 notches later.

Once that's done, I'm trying to decide if I want to coat the rings with a watertight PVA solution before proceeding any further.  They'll probably be easier to sand down before assembling the fragile neck bin rather than afterward.

I'm also wanting to make the top circle of the neck bin, but I have no idea yet how wide of a diameter it should be, nor what the fancy inside cut dimensions are.  Here's the post on AdamSt's diary to which I'm referring.

His struts were 27cm along their length, on top of which he sat his neck bin top.  Mine are 28cm, but I'll trim them down to 27cm before I affix them.  Even so, the distance between each strut top to its counterpart on the opposite end of the bin is ~46cm.  The NDS plans for the bin, however show a disk at the top that's 40.5cm, and from mesh to mesh, a distance of 45cm—still short of my diameter (again, on too-long 28cm struts, so it'll be even wider when those are trimmed).

In other news, I got a quote from Barnwell in the UK for their small Dalek oil seals (£50.00, not shabby compared to the States), but shipping it to my neck of the woods is an additional £37.00, which, when converted into Yankee cash is $136.45.  Eeeeeep.

So, as authentic as I might wish to be, I may go in a different direction.