Today's work, well, it has been solid enough, I think. Oh, yes, there was one hitch, big one at that.
As of yesterday, I was optimistic that smoothing out boundary steps between the bonded members would be fairly easy on my belt sander. As it turned out it was not. I would not go into the details. Suffice to say that it was time consuming, initially, at least.
All in all, I had to reorganise the layout of my workshop machines, including my Delta planer and I am pleased to say that my efforts payed off, as you are about to see.
The first of the five photos is as follows, and
what is intended here is to stop inserted legs from moving out of position. To that end two pieces of stopper were clamped at either end of the inverted bed (not yet in place), and the white piece of paper is there for eventual easy removal of the bonding agent.
Then, the bed is inverted and placed between the stoppers, as you see in the following picture.
Legs are then inserted as follows.
and a clamping aid is placed over the legs, striding across them,
and the whole assembly is firmly clamped, as the final picture indicates, here.
Today's most demanding task was to come up with an easy way to fix those 45 degree legs to the main bed. Geometrically speaking they are at right angles and you would expect to use commercial clamps as shown below,
However, these are bulky and rather expensive and above all not exactly appropriate for the short legs for my snack beds. Typically, these commercial jigs are meant to clamp 5 cm or longer. So, I had to devise my own way of fixing my members.
Cutting materials to 45 degrees is one thing, but bonding them at the right place at the right angle without recognisable gaps is completely another. In fact, any gap at all will completely destroy the whole beauty and elegance of the snack beds.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow...
As of yesterday, I was optimistic that smoothing out boundary steps between the bonded members would be fairly easy on my belt sander. As it turned out it was not. I would not go into the details. Suffice to say that it was time consuming, initially, at least.
All in all, I had to reorganise the layout of my workshop machines, including my Delta planer and I am pleased to say that my efforts payed off, as you are about to see.
The first of the five photos is as follows, and
what is intended here is to stop inserted legs from moving out of position. To that end two pieces of stopper were clamped at either end of the inverted bed (not yet in place), and the white piece of paper is there for eventual easy removal of the bonding agent.
Then, the bed is inverted and placed between the stoppers, as you see in the following picture.
Legs are then inserted as follows.
and a clamping aid is placed over the legs, striding across them,
and the whole assembly is firmly clamped, as the final picture indicates, here.
Today's most demanding task was to come up with an easy way to fix those 45 degree legs to the main bed. Geometrically speaking they are at right angles and you would expect to use commercial clamps as shown below,
However, these are bulky and rather expensive and above all not exactly appropriate for the short legs for my snack beds. Typically, these commercial jigs are meant to clamp 5 cm or longer. So, I had to devise my own way of fixing my members.
Cutting materials to 45 degrees is one thing, but bonding them at the right place at the right angle without recognisable gaps is completely another. In fact, any gap at all will completely destroy the whole beauty and elegance of the snack beds.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow...