I glued up the circular ribs for the rocketship. The outer panels will be glued to these ribs. They are made up in four parts and each half is glued together, than secured to the other half with 1 1/4" wood screws. If I had the inclination, bolts would have been better, but assembly shouldn't have to happen very often - just to bring it into the house.
I originally planed to use the router and a straight cutting bit to trim down the ribs so that the circle pieces would all be on the same plane but gave up on that idea after trying it on some scrap - maybe next time. I used the larger circle as a template, stacked the pieces then glued and screwed two joints and screwed the other two to get a full circle. After doing this twice I had my two rib circles.
The circular ribs will be supported by some vertical ribs that will be attached to the bottom circles. I cut up three vertical ribs, one 3/4" longer than the other two. The longer piece was secured to the bottom circle, then I cut a recess in the top circle of plywood to slide it into place. Next the other two vertical ribs were glued and screwed to the top circle. My pin nailer made all of this much easier - pin the pieces in place then drill the countersink and screw them down. In the photo below you can see the cutout in the bottom plywood for the closes vertical rib.
Next I stacked up the circular ribs, adding another layer of vertical ones in between. The idea is that each circular rib half is connected to one of the circles on the bottom. The sides of the rocket will be secured to one half of the circular rib and the adjoining circle on the bottom. The circular ribs can be unscrewed and the rocket can be divided into two for transport. Since it is slightly larger than 40" it won't fit through a doorway unless this is done.
One coat of black paint on the rocket engines - looks good to me!
No comments:
Post a Comment