Monday, July 26, 2021

Main Boom

Friday I took the time to cut out the main boom plywood panels. Here are a couple shots of my marking the taper with a batten and using a 1x4 as a cutting guide. I did make a mistake on one of the pieces. I read the plans wrong and cut one of the tapers too short. I had to remake that piece. 

I've got enough plywood for small mistakes, BUT not for any big ones. Better be careful!



I also had spent some time working on the staves that will complete the "box". I was trying to use left over Douglas Fir for that job. I actually had two pieces that looked pretty good and would only need a little "resawing" to make them fit. 

Today I wanted to start the glue up process. I started by looking at the staves. One was just too crooked so I cut some more wood. It would need a scarf but that wouldn't be too hard.

Here is a pic of two pieces being glued up into one of the two staves. I used the front edge of the workbench as a "straightedge". 


When I went to scarf the two sides of the plywood portion of the boom, I realized that I had cut two of the matching pieces short!!!! They needed to be 6'2" long. I cut them 62". Duh! Should have been 74". There's the old adage: measure twice - cut once. I measured twice but forgot what our math teachers taught us in elementary school. "Show your work" and "check your work". My math was wrong. I guess it was easy enough to be thinking 6'2" and measure 62". Oh, well. No harm really done. Just an extra half hours work. I used the piece I messed up earlier for the fix. 

What to do? I was going to have one scarf anyway, so I decided to just insert an "extension" into the two pieces leaving two scarfs each. I decided to take the chickens' way out and used butt blocks. They'll be on the inside of the boom and there is no curve, so it should be just fine. 

A couple pics of the "fix".




I used small nails to put pressure on the joints rather than weights or clamps. That way I was able to wipe away the squeeze out. The reason the butt blocks do not go all the way to the edge is to make room for the 1/2" staves. 

I'll start gluing the pieces together the next session. 




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