Today's work: Gun Box

[kproche]

Here are the photos from today's project: the "gun box" that the ball-joint-mounted gun and plunger arm come out of.

Parts for TDKs Gun Box The Gun Box is where the plunger arm and gun emerge from the Dalek. Here we have (in 1/4" Plywood): Top Two sides and Front (with holes for the ball joints) Bottom

Another view of the Gun Box parts The 6 blocks are 3/4" square hardwood to which I'll screw the plywood. This will give me nice strong, square joints

The assembled box, front view I cut the holes for the ball joints using a circle tool with my Dremel.

Side view of assembled box There is lots of distortion from the iPhone lens. The back end of the box (to the right in the photo) is actually square; only the front face is angled.

Assembled Gun Box, inside view Here you can see 3 of the hardwood blocks. I need to shape two more to match the angles between the top, front face, and bottom, so I can stabilize the long edges in the center of the box

Inside view of assembled gun box It isn't real obvious, but if you look closely you can see I used the sanding roller on my Dremel to chamfer the inside edge of the hole for the ball joint. This lets it fit better, and let me even out the worst distortions I got in my (newbie) circle cutting with the Dremel.

Test fit of redwood ball joint into aperture on box As you can see, the fit is pretty good. This is the ball I'll be drilling the well into for the wide end of the plunger arm.

Comments

[lferion]

Looking good!

By the way, I bought my membership today - now I just need to get some kind of room-arrangement made.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

Check out both the hotel page on the G1 website and the hotel discussion on Gallifrey Base for suggestions. Hotel space that weekend is really tight due to coincident NBA playoffs, if you weren't aware

Great progress.

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

You might want to coat or line the gun boxes circle where it will touch the redwood ball joint to make for smoother swivels. Wood on wood tends to wear away one or both surfaces.

(Of course you might have plans to varnish or paint the whole thing,please ignore suggestion in that case) ;)

Re: Great progress.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm considering what might work there; the rest of the ball joint mount is a "sandwich" comprising the 3.0 inch hole in the gun box, another layer screwed to the back of that with a 3.25 inch hole (the diameter of the ball), then on the far side another pair (3.25" screwed to 3.0"), all clamped with 4 carriage bolts to apply some holding friction.

Re: Great progress.

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

My first thoughts would be to seal the redwood ball in varnish and then line the inside of the sandwiching layers with teflon tape.

Re: Great progress.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

I was actually considering getting one of those high-density polyethylene cutting boards and cutting the inside pieces out of that instead of wood.

Re: Great progress.

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

Good idea, it would act like a "nylon" bushing. Cutting it smoothly might be an issue though. Also sanding that material tends to clog up the grit on sandpaper.

Re: Great progress.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

well, the sanding "drums" for my Dremel are pretty much dirt cheap.