Kresty working on Fusion Power Generator

[kresty]

Along the way I had a bad idea.

The middle section that the grill rings attach to needs to be round, however it consists of a bunch of "strong" sections where the grill slats attach, and "weak" sections in between those.  So it wants to bend in the skinny sections, and not bend so much where the slats attach.

I thought that if I could find something round, then maybe I could form the styrene to the round thing.  I found a paint can that was almost the right size.

My thinking was that if I could get it to stay there, then it'd be closer than when it was flat.  So I figured I'd use a heat gun to make the plastic reconsider it's position.  Unfortunately it started to do what you might expect styrene would do under heat:  Curl around the edges, particularly the thin bits I was worried about.  And I still couldn't get the "thick" parts to bend very well.

Fail - Kresty's Fusion Reactor

So I took it off.  I'd actually expected it to have some of the curve, just not be as consistent as I wanted.  However it really didn't keep much of the curve at all.  And you can see where it bent unevenly at the weakest spots.

Fail - Kresty's Fusion Reactor

I think the part is still usable, but I'm a bit bummed this didn't work even a little bit.  It didn't even really bend at all except in the few spots it sort of collapsed. Hopefully other people will learn from my failed idea and not bother trying that! (or doing it smarter somehow).