Weekend Photos - November 2020

[healey36]

Healey,
Is this going to be covered in some way?
If so, why worry about a few wrinkles ( that I can't see) ?

I'm not too worried about it, only to the extent that it'll muck up my ability to fit a pair of center supports. I'm going to use the pattern I made for the portals, but I know the misshapen lining may cause problems with the fit. I'll just fudge it a bit.

[healey36]

I had wanted to use cereal-box thickness cardboard, but couldn't find a piece 17" long.

Next time give me a shout; I kept the cardstock backing bits off the packs of large instrument recording chart paper. I think they are at least 16".

Thanks for that. Due to my irrational exuberance in design, the base is 17" long, lol. I have an old R/C airplane kit whose box would have done nicely, but then I'd have a loose kit laying around, one with quite a few rather delicate parts. Shelf life would have dropped to nil.

Reminds me a bit of The Old Man...whenever he was building something and needed a bit of plywood, he would cut up our ping-pong table. Can't tell you how many cabinets and bookcases he built over the years that had a back painted green with white lines running at strange angles. Between me and my brothers, we must have had a half-dozen ping-pong tables. My youngest brother still has a humidor he repaired with the obligatory green/white back.

[healey36]

Is this going to be covered in some way?

Yeah, it will get an old-school papier-mâché shell, unless I decide to use a Lionel-style glue-soaked felt treatment. Might even make the shell out of foam...not sure yet, long ways to go.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I had wanted to use cereal-box thickness cardboard, but couldn't find a piece 17" long.

Next time give me a shout; I kept the cardstock backing bits off the packs of large instrument recording chart paper. I think they are at least 16".

Thanks for that. Due to my irrational exuberance in design, the base is 17" long, lol.

They may be 18"; just don't know; shoved into a slot in the shop until I need one for something. Although, I've been tossing some of that stuff out or into the fireplace of late. Selling off stuff or just getting rid of it in whatever way I can. Too much under foot.

[healey36]

Too much under foot.

Yeah, some serious excavation needs to be done here. I'm finally coming around to the notion that the project pile and the applicable actuarial table do not intersect.

[Chris Webster]

Reminds me a bit of The Old Man...whenever he was building something and needed a bit of plywood, he would cut up our ping-pong table. Can't tell you how many cabinets and bookcases he built over the years that had a back painted green with white lines running at strange angles. Between me and my brothers, we must have had a half-dozen ping-pong tables.

I don't understand this -- were the ping pong tables breeding?

[healey36]

He’d cut one up, then we’d get a new one for Christmas. Within a few months he’d need a piece of plywood, cut the new one up. At one point we had three or four table frames in a pile at the back of the garage. In the summer we’d play on an oversized picnic table, as the ping-pong table in the basement rarely made it through winter and spring.

[gregj410]

I could be missing something about what you are trying to accomplish but maybe this would help sturdy things up. Kind of a quick and dirty sketch. The black would be 1x staves following the portal around screwed through portal ends. Probably a little overkill but you never know when you may have to stand on that thing You could then run some hot melt beads along the staves edge meeting the cardboard. Or even thumbtack it up from the bottom side through the staves.

[healey36]

The key to this thing is the strength of the base, which this tunnel bit is the “spine”. It’s actually plenty strong, and it’ll be even stronger when I get the bottom edge of the liner glued to the frame. I was bellyaching over the difficulty I had trying to form a nice arch in the top of the liner. I should have taken more time, used a yardstick or something to incrementally bend it around the shipping tube. No biggie, as it’ll be completely covered, and it’s deep enough in the tunnel, no one will see it. That said, the staves idea is interesting, something I hadn’t considered.