Ugh, I'm tired. Seems like I've been working on the Dalek all day. It occurs to me that I don't really want to call him a Dalek until he's done. I need to come up with a project code name, one that rings of my home state. Hmm, maybe Project Rainier! Alright, done. Project Rainier it is.
So, today was all about cutting skirt panels. First thing, though, was a quick trip to Lowe's to get a sturdier blade for my jigsaw, and various other things (as always, see materials and tools list below). I wound up getting one that was graded for metal work, and was assured that would do the trick.
Before I got to work cutting the panels, I took a tip from ChristmasDalek and lettered each of the panels so that after cutting them, I know which ones to put next to what.
Cutting the panels took up most of the time I think, since I had to unclamp, adjust, and re-clamp the guides for every. Single. Cut. But eventually, after periodically cooling off from another exceptionally sunny day, the work was done.
The rest of the day was me rediscovering how terrible I am at math. I was trying to calculate the angle for the front strut support, noting that my plywood pieces are 1.1cm thick. According to the NSD plans, the hight of the skirt is 68.6cm. Factoring in both top and bottom of the skirt, the difference was a height of 66.4cm. I only had a fairly narrow length of plywood left, and, as I stated, I'm rubbish at math. So, I drew a right angle on a spare piece of HDF (I have lots of that) 66.4 cm high and 25.9cm wide (the distance from the tip of the skirt bottom to the shirt top, again, according to the NDS plans. I drew whatever the resulting hypotenuse of that triangle was, and cut out the template. I then traced around this on my narrow piece of plywood so that it would fit, and cut that out, too. Now I had the front strut. Then I gave up on the angle stuff as it was taking me far too long, and just made three 67.5cm lengths of plywood for the back and sides from what plywood was left.
(The new jigsaw blade works nicely on the plywood, too. Wish I had that blade earlier!)
Since these latter struts are going to be set at the same level as the skirt bottom (inside the cut-out area), they are 1.1cm longer than the front strut. I attached them in a sloppy I-don't-care-at-this-point-in-the-afternoon way, at first using 2 picture hanging nails (those buggers love to bend when you nail them). I noticed that a bit of the strut's plywood was starting to chip off, so I switched to only one nail on the next one, which then, of course, wouldn't stay upright much. I attached the third one with 2 nails again, but it's wee bit of plywood (one layer of it anyway) came off. Ah, well, these are to be temporary anyway. Oh, which reminds me, that's why I used picture hanging nails instead of countersunk screws—there was only 6mm of room I was working with, and, as I said, the struts are temporary.
I decided to stop there, since I need to reinforce these with something, maybe like metal corner braces or something. I got a lot accomplished during the long Independence Day weekend, but probably won't get much done during the week. I am chomping at the bit to get my panels on and see how they fit!
Oh, and I realized a very unhappy thought—the skirt base won't fit through my house's doors, and will just barely fit through my back sliding glass door. But once the base is built ... not even that will be wide enough. I may have to relocate to my garage and park my car on the sketchy street. *shivers*Just bought the Dalek Builder's Workshop Manual; figured it would give me a greater insight for my construction :)
Now, onto today's numbers:
Previous balance: $282.99
Tools:
1 - Surform shaver: $6.98
1 - countersink bits (5-piece): $14.78
1 - wood screws (100 count): $5.58
1 - Bondo putty knife set: $1.99
1 - Bosch jigsaw blades 3 1/3" 14-18 tpi (5-piece) : $8.19
Sub-total: $37.52
Materials:
1 - gallon jug of Acetone: $16.99
1 - 14oz can of Bondo body filler: $9.99
5 - 1/3 sheet 80 grit sandpaper: $4.99
5 - 1/3 sheet 400 grit sandpaper: $4.99
Sub-total: $36.96
Misc:
1 - Dalek Builder's Workshop Manual: $14.87 (£9.70)
Grand total: $89.35
Total to date: $372.34
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