Day 44 - Finished neck bolts and final shoulder cladding strips

After spending a bit of time making .eps files for the light cages, I swung by Metrix Create:Space here in Seattle to get them cut out onto acrylic sheets.  I got to watch as the laser cutter sliced out these beauties.  Such lovely work!  I think I'll return to them for the gunbox detailing, and see if they can cut HDF or something similar.

For the light cage bottom, my intent is to glue the 4.5mm and 6mm pieces together for a total height of 10.5mm.  Then, I will glue the thinner, wider 3mm thick part (Ring 1) on top of that, which is where the screw holes will also be drilled.

The struts are .35mm too thin, and the ring tops are .5mm too thin, but I pretty much don't care.  I'll also drill holes into each end of the struts, as well as the top rings.

The rest of the day was all about getting the shoulders (finally) ready for their expanding foam.  Because of the size of the gunbox hole, I needed to add one more spacer before I could make my card template.  So, I did that, then made a card template, used it to jigsaw out some final strips of HDF board, and soaked those in the bathroom sink for an hour.

I wanted them to dry with a bit more of a curve than what was called for, because I don't have any clamps that can reach midway down the shoulders.  You'll see what I mean at the end of this entry.  I decided to clamp them in reverse inside the top shoulder ring.  I applied a bit of heat from a hair dryer, and then set to work on the rest of the neck blocks while those where drying.

I don't have pics for this part, but I used the jigsaw to cut the small comb-like cuts I wrote about before for the remaining 23 blocks.  Boring, boring, boring.  Except this is where my first injury of this whole diary occurred—I sliced my thumb a bit when my box knife slipped.  I had been scoring the comb-like cuts to make them fall our easier.  Oops.  Washed, alcoholed, bandaged, back to work.

I hadn't unboxed my new drill yet, so I assembled it in fairly short order, then set to work making a jig to account for the 45° angle of the 1/2" hole I needed to drill.  I used the remaining uncut strut board, a few clamps here and there, and another piece of wood to keep the neck bolts from sliding.  Viola.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned this: I found a wood store right next to a new tool shop I discovered (the one where I bought my drill), and that wood shop happened to have two packs of 12 1/2" wooden balls in stock!  Exactly 24 remaining in their whole store.  Kismet!

I attached a 1/2" round router bit to the drill and tested it out, setting the drill limit as I did so that I could make uniform holes in all 24 neck bolts.  I tested each of them out before proceeding to the next, and they all wound up with a really nice fit.

I decided that I wanted to again take a page out of AdamSt's diary and countersink these blocks so that I could attach them to the neck struts with wood screws.  I replaced the 1/2" router bit with one of my countersink bits that I got waaay back when I was making the skirt, and drilled away.

In the plans, I also noticed that the blocks are slightly rounded on some edges.  I don't have a bench sander, so I clamped my orbital sander to my table and did it that way, mostly with it turned off, actually!  But sometimes I would rev it up to make quicker work of this very tedious task.

Finally, I attached all the bolts to the struts with screws, first taking my hand drill and making an angled hole in the strut through the neck block hole.  I didn't want the strut to split while I was screwing in a wood screw, after all.

And, ta-da, the completed (yet unsanded) neck bin!  This piece is now VERY sturdy.

By this time, I had burned a lot of hours with all the repetitive work this entailed.  The cladding I had set out to dry was very dry, indeed, and ready for gluing.  As I stated earlier in this entry, I didn't have clamps large enough to apply direct pressure to the strips, so I wanted a more severe curve in the HDF that would require less pressure.  Clamping the pieces to the inside of the top shoulder ring accomplished this nicely, and I was able to rig together a loose clamping solution that should take care of this final part.

Once it's dry, I can start FOAMING!  I. Cannot. Wait.