Ground Board

August 29, 2007

Started on assembly of the ground board tonight. Started by laminating the 3 sections of each foot together with epoxy and dowels. I decided to attach the Formica bottoms to the feet at this point, figuring it would be much simpler to trim the bottoms, sand, and rout the feet without them being attached to the ground board. And I think I was right.

August 30, 2007

Took the glued up feet into the shop at work to use the stationary belt sander on them, 'cause a bit of epoxy was squeezed out of the joints. I think that the belt on that sander was #120. Anyway, it made short work of the epoxy and did a decent job of rough sanding the joints. As with any high velocity sander like that, you have to be aware that the edge that the belt hits first will sand much faster than the other edge.

Back at home, I put the feet topside up on my router table and used a Bosch round-over bit (with bearing) to finish their bottom edges. I just moved the bit back just enough under the fence and then held the feet against the fence opening as I rotated it.

The fence came off and a pin and guard were put in place on the table top to round-over the top and bottom surfaces of the ground board (after marking on the board where to stop rounding the bottom edge where the feet would attach).

I further finished the feet and the ground board at that point with #150 and #180 on a handheld finishing sander, cleaned up a bit, and got some epoxy ready. After painting some epoxy on the top of the feet, they got attached to the bottom of the ground board and then clamped. By the way, the dowels were about 3/16" too long and stood proud of the top surface, so the clamps had to be jiggled around a little. Those stumps will require some work tomorrow to get them flush with the board's top surface.

August 31, 2007

Took the stumps down with a sanding wheel on a Dremel. Fast! Then tried to sand down some of the poor fit between the edges of the board and the feet. I don't know if these were specifically fitted, but some had about 1/8" gap. Lastly, I put some of the wood putty into the router tears that came on the ground board, let them dry for 10 minutes, and sanded them flush.

After cleanup and dust removal, put a 50-50 mix of the MinWax Helmsman and mineral spirits onto the surfaces. Hope to be able to get a second coat on tonight, then use some aerosal on it tomorrow. That will complete the groundboard except for miscellaneous hardware installation. Good thing, too, as I leave for a week on Sunday to visit my ancient parents, then return to Portland for a few hours before leaving for 2+ weeks in Singapore. I don't suspect I'll be able to do anything else on this project until nearly September 28. I'll miss it!

September 2, 2007

Yesterday, I did manage to get some finishing work done on the ground board. I hit it with 2 coats of aerosol Helmsman urethane and it looks pretty completed (especially since it's not visible in normal usage!).

Between coats, I looked into getting the parts together for the mirror box. I wound up kinda mystified by the "cage rests", as describe on page 35 of my 12-16" (new!) assembly manual. I neither had the plywood parts nor the slots in the box parts that they were to be epoxied into. So, I sent an email off to Randy and Allan to find out what's up with this. Good thing that I'm already in Memphis, on my way to Florida, and I'll only have 12 hours or so at home next Saturday before leaving for Singapore.

But I did have time to fill some edge defects with putty and get that sanded down with #120. But no time and no extra hands around to get the box glued up.

September 6, 2007

Randy replied that this 14" kit was the first of a new design (for this size) using mostly 1/2" Baltic Birch ply and that the cage would not need any rests within the box. I'm to let him know if that is not the case and AstroSystems will make things right. I like that - "Don't Worry, Be Happy"!