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1929 Trench build Tutukaka NZ

Started by Oor Wullie, Apr 06, 2022, 09:36 pm

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Rassilons Rod

Good luck and good health!
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

Oor Wullie

First day back on the job of building after my heart surgery recovery of the last 3.5 months. Feeling much better.

Five months ago, I started getting my lamp together by hand drilling the holes where the threaded rods will hold the parts together. I suspected that the holes were off-vertical, so I bought a Ryobi drill press.

Got it out of the shed and had a go at getting those holes straight but I'm not impressed by the tool. A lot of fiddling required to position the table such that the bit doesn't miss the table hole. The same brace for that also lets the table height to be set and locked, so one upsets the other.

There is a plastic safety shield two inches around the bit which limits the drilling depth.

It a smallish table, so getting a clamp onto the piece is delicate.

Grumble over. I think I need a longer bit to overcome the drill depth issue. I'll get one today.

All this is confounded by my "companion's" hell-bent move to sell the house and have us move closer to family. While I was in recovery, her and her friend moved my workshop to a storage shed, so I'm sitting on the ground drilling.

I thought I said my grumble was over. Anyway, it's good to be feeling my way back into the project again. Of course, the TARDIS still needs disassembly once we get a new place. Grumble grumble.

Oor Wullie

The grumble paid off. I watched a few Youtubes on this drill press and found my concerns are everyone's concerns. So I leapt back in and got the holes done.

Since I didn't have that long bit, I drilled each piece separately. Once done, I did a test fit of the threaded rods and found them to be tight due to the minor differences in the sets of holes. Might use the hand drill to expand them to the next bit size up.

I used the centre hole alignment as my overall placement of the holes since the lens needs to fit well. I'm sure this isn't over yet but it's a good step ahead.

Note that one hole on each piece should be marked as the reference hole to line everything up.

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Oor Wullie

More lamp tales. I'd originally started drilling with a hand drill, with its inherent variability of the vertical.

Then I tried to correct for this by re-drilling each hole on the drill press.

I realised that I wanted very little tension in the threaded rods which join all the pieces, so I pegged three holes with 6 mm dowel and tried to drill the fourth on the drill press, in turns, using a long bit I just bought.

Found this to be near impossible due to depth of drill drop, length of bit and height of the stacked pieces.

So I put the new bit in the hand drill and bored out any minor misalignment. Full circle back to the hand drill!

This reminds me of the band saw I bought to cut long bevels, only to have the blade wander no matter the adjustments. In that case, I returned to the trusty table saw.

I'm at the point where I can say which tools you need to build a TARDIS and which you don't. My short list is table saw, track plunge saw, hand drill and a drill driver for screwing (though I only have the former), drop mitre saw, a good sharp small hand saw, a router for the door square bevels snd a shop vacuum for sawdust.

The relatively affordable table tools like the drill press and band saw are worth having in a wood-shop but have not helped this project much.

In any case, the test fitting of the lamp parts has gone well. Next to cut the metal brass tubes which sheath the threaded rods and to cut the rod lengths. Then some blue paint and wing nuts and we're there.

There's that design in a real Met Box where the rods protrude down into the inside to position the lightbulb tray. I like the idea but having pokey thing aimed at my head sounds wrong. I'm sure I'll be up a ladder from time to time.

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Oor Wullie

Less I miss recording a step, just finished cutting the stainless steel threaded rods and brass tubes that will sheath the rods between the top and bottom lamp parts.

I tried cutting the brass tubes with a hacksaw and plastic mitre box but it was slow going. I remembered the cordless Ryobi reciprocal saw and the fine toothed metal blade I've used on steel bolts before.

I used painter's tape to join and cut two pieces at a time. Once again, the cheap plastic mitre saw was good for this cut. Still took around 30 seconds per cut.

I noticed some burrs on the cut ends, so I hauled out the bench-top grinding wheel to polish them off.

I may leave the brass as brass, it just looks cooler than blue paint.

Another blue coat on the wood bits and a last minute re-drilling of hole to get any paint out and I should be getting the lamp together.

My building slothfulness has many excuses. We're moving house and have an open home on Sunday, so I'm mowing the lawns etc. My big tools are in offsite storage, not my doing. I'm four and a half months since my two open heart surgeries, so more tired than you'd think.

Anyway, any progress is good. Rods and tubes in the front of the lamp in this photo.

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Oor Wullie

Feb 16, 2024, 10:54 pm #320 Last Edit: Feb 16, 2024, 10:57 pm by Oor Wullie
Close to lamp assembly, I have let my dreams of a steampunk clear dome go by sanding the plexiglass with one of those sandpaper sponge blocks, good for curves and crannies.
 
Sanding plexiglass is necessary to give it some tooth for good paint adhesion.

I've got some house ding and hole wall plastering going, so I'll use the same white primer sealer on the dome as I do on the walls. An indoor/outdoor choice of paint.

The reason I left the dome clear was that I'd gotten a solar remote control light from China last year. But the solar doesn't work, yet the USB does. So much for cool solutions.

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Oor Wullie

Baby stepping. I didn't even photograph the dome with white primer sealer but you can imagine it. Two top coats of blue done. I'll redrill the holes to get the paint drippings out and then get the lamp together, can't wait.

But house sale and US tax season are eroding my time.

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Oor Wullie

Mar 09, 2024, 12:48 am #322 Last Edit: Mar 09, 2024, 12:51 am by Oor Wullie
Lamp temporary assembly done today. The vinyl wingnuts might not be every TARDIS builders cup of tea, but I like them for their nautical steampunk feel. The plastic nut eliminates electrolysis and corrosion between metals.

The wingnuts at the bottom will get replaced by countersunk hex nuts so the bottom is flat to attach to the roof. I'm just putting tension on to get everything snug. I have some nuts with vinyl locks but it would be a pain getting them up the threaded rod.

The brass tubes are staying brass, I like them, though they should be blue.

It's all an illusion caused by the stuck chameleon circuit anyway. A working circuit and a TARDIS can look like a carrousel, a hot dog stand or the Taj Mahal.

I use rubber washers at each end of the brass tubes and under the top wingnuts.

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Volpone

You've put so much thought into this.  At the risk of unsolicited advice (and knowing how often my good ideas have went wrong on my own build so maybe I shouldn't be giving advice) I wonder if a grease or petroleum jelly on the threads would both serve for additional waterproofing and to prevent metal interaction. 
"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alters their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit the views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
-The Doctor,
"Face of Evil."

Oor Wullie

Thanks Volpone. Yep, I'll use silicone grease on the threads to keep water from creeping down the spiral. Or I could countersink a nut into the top wood circle and then turn the plexiglass dome on order to screw on on, covering those nuts completely. What I like about the wing nuts is they operate as a clamp to seat the 'fresnel' lamp chimney against the white silicone O-rings which keep water out of the circular wood groove.

My companion is off visiting for a week, so I'll finally start to tackle the window puttying. Long time coming, that job.

Oor Wullie

Problem solving thought exercise. I have to countersink the nuts and washers at the base of the lamp. I have a great countersinking bit for this thanks to my father in law giving me his set of large bits.

This type of bit makes a flat- bottomed cylindrical hole. Pointed bits would leave a cone-shaped hole. The 'flat' bit I'm using has a small point to grab the center. But I'm drilling into a pre-existing smaller hole!

Solution is to drill through a thin piece of scrap stock and then eyeball that hole to equally surround the small hole. Clamp the guide stock to the lamp, using the guide to centre the hole on the smaller hole.

Mark the sum of the thickness of the guide stock plus the depth of the nut and washer with electrical tape on the bit. Drill the countersink hole but stopping at the tape mark.

If I tried to simply drill the hole out by eye, I can guarantee the bit would walk off centre, preventing the threaded rod and nut from lining up perfectly.

I'll report on the theory to progress ratio when I drill tomorrow.

Oor Wullie

OK, I won't re-explain. Please see my last post. It worked a charm. Here's the photo evidence.

The guide hole in scrap stock

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Clamped onto the lamp base

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Drill bit depth-stop marked by electrical tape, depth = scrap guide thickness plus nut and washer height = 15 mm

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Marker mark on threaded rod showing where the flush lamp bottom ended. The countersunk washer and nut sit below this mark

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Countersunk nut on re-tightened rod

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Now the lamp base can sit flat on the roof-top square. The rods extend inside the TARDIS to support a wood square holding the lamp light and inside light.

Oor Wullie

May 02, 2024, 10:16 pm #327 Last Edit: May 02, 2024, 10:18 pm by Oor Wullie
Probably a year after getting the build 90% done, I've set new co-ordinates and hit the Master Dematerialization Switch, due to enter the Vortex on 24 May.

Translation: Sold the house and bought another and we move on the 24th. I'm testing my forethought during assembly and taking her apart in reverse order. I look forward to the rebuild as I can fix a couple of flaws from the first time, like getting the roof in place early to get the columns square. This will help with better seating of the sign boxes.

So far I've gotten the sign boxes down and the walls unscrewed. Today I'll scrape back the puttied screws in the outer floor edges and the screws holding the front and back floorboards that attach the columns. Once the columns are down, the base can be lifted and that's that then.

Moving from Tutukaka in Northland to Waiuku in the south-west reaches of Auckland, below the Manukau Harbour (New Zealand, this is). Lovely huge lawn and gardens in the new place, affording a few choices for landing the ship.


Oor Wullie

It's been four months in the new digs and entering springtime, which is a lovely time to get around to rematerialisation.

I've had a full year since my open heart surgery and survived the regeneration.

The good part about building the same box a second time is the opportunity to fix things that went wonky the first time around.

My first new fix will be using plywood on the floor, rather than a series of floorboards. The first build saw 150 mm wide fence palings used but they had varying warpage so the walls never sat level in relation to each other.

Plus I used palings which were 25 mm thick, completely filling the inset in the base. This meant that when I covered the floor with 2 mm vinyl, it was a bit too high for the door bottom.

I can get treated plywood in 21, 22 and 25 mm. I'm toying with the idea of using 22 + the vinyl to get to 24. This leaves 1 mm  wanting from the outside of the walls and the beveled edge of the base. I had some sloped moulding in this space the first time, cut to fit all the wiggly bits. One thing I might do is cut the bottoms on the centre mullions on the walls so I can slip these floor strips underneath, rather than cutting around them.

Plywood is a great choice but it largely come in 1200x2400 mm and my floor inset is 1370 mm square. So one piece will be 1200 x 1370 and then I'll cut two lengths of 1200 x 150 and cut their lengths to 685 mm to meet in the middle at the centre joist.

My first actual work was screwing in the inside mullions and muntins in the window frames. I was going to putty them in but there's no need to. Just a bead of putty on the outside to ward off rain.

I cleaned the old tarpaper off the bottom of the base and will apply a new lot when I lay the base in place.

Here's the new site. We gained some beautiful gardens with this new house.

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Oor Wullie

I went local to see what plywood I could get and found a 21 mm H3 product and went for it. My local hardware store has a huge table saw, capable of very precise and square cuts.

I went to the front counter to pay and to bring my car around and found that the young guy who was helping me had already cut it all to spec. Home I went to find the precision was off by a mm, enough to make my inset too tight. Plus, the board was a C/D grade, meaning the top face has knots which are filled and sanded and the back has open defects. I found that the kid had chosen a cutting approach which left me with a long missing lamination layer along one edge.

So I took it back today and an older guy cut off the crap edge and we compensated for this loss by cutting two wider filler boards as I explained in my last post. He also shaved off that extra mm. Got it home and it fits great! Age and experience matter, even though the younger guy knew what a TARDIS was.

While there, I bought four tricorner brackets for the inside of my right angle columns/pillars.

As I said last time, the 21 mm floor plus 2 mm of vinyl flooring leaves 2 mm of lip at the edge of the base. I think it's a good way to seat the columns square and then these brackets will lock that square in place. Last time I built it, I screwed upward through the floorboards, into the bottom of the columns. I'm sure this lead to slight shifts from 90 degrees and one sign box wasn't flush on one side.

Next I'll paint the ply and cut the two smaller boards to meet in the middle of the floor joist.

Still need to level the land where she'll sit.

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