Savage's Fusion Generator

[kresty]

Now I'm wanting to work on mine!

[savagecreature]

Just a quick, small update to keep the ball rolling . . .

I applied glazing putty to the lower hose fittings to fill in the roughness on the top and set them aside to cure.

After that I went back to the CnCed parts. Took the upright supports for the base and dry fit them to the bottom disk, making sure that the tabs fit in the slots properly

Then, without even removing the uprights, I ran a bead of Weld-on on both sides of the corner formed where the two pieces meet.  Then I placed some large bearings I had lying around the lab against either side of each upright to keep them properly vertical.

     

I just worked my way around the base repeating these steps for each upright

Weld-on takes some time to dry and doesn't reach full strength for over 24 hours, so I gave those uprights some time to sit with the bearings in place so it would be rigid enough for me add more parts.  Once I was comfortable with how stiff the joins had become I grabbed the pile of half circles and selected the pair of largest diameter. I slid half of it into the lowest slots on one side of the supports

I slid the other half in the other side and made sure that both end joints made contact with each other easily, not requiring any force to press them together.  I had to shave down the inside of the half circles a little bit (not much) to get them to fit properly.  It's important to make sure they align vertically when you glue them. You don't want one side higher than the other. Once they fitting to my satisfaction I glued the end joints and let them harden up.

Because I had only glued those joints, and not glued the ring to the uprights at all, I was then able to rotate the ring, sliding it through the slots in the uprights, until the seam was aligned with an upright on each side.

I then ran a bead of Weld-on on both sides of where the upright formed a corner with the ring, top and bottom, gluing those two uprights to the ring keeping the ring seam in place.  One the proper orientation of the ring was established in manner, I went around and glued the ring to all the other uprights.

After that I followed pretty much exactly the same procedure with the next ring.  Fit the ring properly, glue the the ring together, rotate the ring so the seam is on an upright, glue the ring in place.

The second ring is primarily in contact with the uprights on the bottom, so I flipped the base over and rand my beads of glue on both sides of the upright from underneath

then I set the entire assembly aside to let the Weld-on cure overnight before I started applying any part of the outer skins

[kresty]

Wow, I want those bearings!

[savagecreature]

Writing the posts for this build log are nearly as much work as just building the darn thing   So some of these posts might be kinda short/small, just to keep me from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information I have to convey. I also want to get this stuff written down before I forget what I did.


I didn't feel like sanding last night, so I went back to the flat pack parts and working on the base. There are four long strips of 1/16 styrene that form the largest, lowest surface on the base. I grabbed one of them and taped it to one of the uprights and fit it around the curve of the base.

Then as before I ran a bead of Weld-on along the top and bottom edges, then added more tape along its length to hold it in place while the cement hardened up.

I did the same thing for the other half using another of the strips. I made sure the ends of the second strip butted up against the first properly before I glued it (sorry. didn't get a photo), taped it in place and added the Weld-on.

This part of the generator is two layers thick, so I put on the remaining two strips pretty much exactly the same way, making sure the butt end seams of the outer strips didn't line up with the ones for the inner strips. Then I taped the crap out of it (that's the scientific term) and left it to cure for a bit.

While that was curing I picked up the long, curved, 1/16 pieces that form the angled face of the base. These parts need a bevel on them to fit correctly and make tighter seams. I have a triangular file that I often use for this sort of thing, but any tool or knife that you can control well that will remove a little bit at a time will work great. I held the strip in one hand at the appropriate angle (I guessed) and ran the file along the edge shaving off little ribbons of plastic.

It didn't take much effort to get a proper bevel on the edge

Then I just flipped it over and did the same thing to the outside curve, making sure both bevels pointed in towards each other.

I fit the strip to the base, carefully aligning the top edge to make the seam as tight as possible and taped it place with a bit of pressure. I really didn't want that seam to shift. I went around the entire strip that way, focusing on just the top edge.

Once I had gotten the whole top edge in place, I went back through, pulling the curved strip down some, and taped the bottom in place as well. This caused some tension across the surface of the piece and insured a good fit.  Then I glued the whole thing in place.  I did the second half f the strip in exactly the same way, making sure the ends butted up against each other properly.

This is what I had when I was finished. I put it back on the shelf to cure overnight.

The whole time I was assembling this section of the base I was lamenting that there were no alignment holes or indications for placement of the geeblies that would later be attached to the base.  One of the primary reasons we use CnCs is for their precision, and the CnC will put the parts in the correct place better than we can with a ruler later. That's an addition to the plans I'll have to add soon.

Also, I had neglected to include information for the Weld-on at first mention, so I'm including it here.  I'm using Weld-on 3

and I use one of these applicators to apply it

[Murasaki]

Any update on this one?

[savagecreature]

Any update on this one?

Yes!! I'll get the post done soon. Had a robotics competition this past weekend and the lead up to it, which took all my time.

[baptizer]

fantastic job, Savage! Eager to see the progression of this build.

[kresty]

(Hey, Savage, sounds like there's no pressure or anything.)

[savagecreature]

Sorry to everyone for the delay in continuing this. Life and all that. I'm sure you all can relate.

So, I kept working my way up the body of the generator. Next was the body cylinder. The part that lights up.  I set up the parts (dry fit like) so I could not only develop an idea for best approach, but so I could also see what parts were required.  Not a great photo, but it shows the cylinder piece, the top ring of the bottom assembly, one of the cylinder rings at the top and and the cylinder top ring, which fits into the inside of the cylinder.

I had glued all the cylinder ring halves together previously in the process believing that I would be able to fit them over the top of the cylinder and that having them complete circles would help form the cylinder and hold it in place while I was gluing and attaching other parts.  This was still the approach was intending to take.  I considered gluing the inside of the top base ring to the outside of the cylinder body, but I found there was a gap in the cylinder if I did this.

Thinking that I could shim between the inside of the ring and the body of the cylinder, I decided to put the cylinder rings on first and see how it all played out. I first fit a ring on the cylinder, but it was difficult to hold in place so I could apply glue. I fished out my mini-barclamps to see if they would do the job.

I slipped the bottom ring around the cylinder, fit the tabs into the slots and clamped it. Once it was held in place I hit it with some Weld-on 3.

This system ultimately worked out fairly well, though it did have the downside of being painfully slow, contributing to my not posting.  I went around each ring, clamping each upright with two mini bar clamps. When I would finish one, I would simply slip another ring down the body of the cylinder from the top, carefully easing each tab into the correct slots and start over again on the new ring. As more rings got added it was easier because the rings already on the cylinder would support the pads of the clamps better.

As I'm always trying to come up with ways to get more done in less time, I started gluing alternating uprights on the cylinder at the same time. It got more ring gluing with the same wait time.

After about 227 years I had all but one of the cylinder rings glued in. There is no gap in the cylinder shell, either top or bottom, so this was definitely the right way to go. I fit the cylinder, the topmost base ring and the top cylinder ring onto the base and snapped a photo. It's starting to look a bit fusion generatory, now, I think.

This post was fairly short because the process was repetitive, but this part of the process has taken the most time of the build so far Definitely needed to be wearing my patience hat.

[kresty]

Wow, it's looking better!