Progress Update, 9/12/13

I've begun to attach some of the pieces I've had sitting in a box for months to my new shell.  It's a bit harder than it looks, this stuff doesn't come with simple drawings and pre drilled holes like Swedish furniture.

Tuesday night after everybody went to bed I sat in the living room with my shell, box of parts, and laptop looking at reference photos. The aluminum parts have holes drilled and tapped, but the shell doesn't, so I have to make templates out of paper in some cases to help me know where to drill on the shell.  I didn't have time to get to everything, but I got a good enough start that I could have a few things to drill in one sitting.

Wednesday night after everyone was in bed again, I brought most of my parts, supplies and necessary tools out to the garage to start drilling.  There was extra room since one of our vehicles is in the shop.

Not all of my templates worked perfectly, but with a little work I got a lot of parts added.  There's still half a box of parts left, and after I add those I'll just have to strip it all down again to paint the shell, but it's necessary to test fit the parts before paint to avoid excess scratching after painting.

I only took a couple of pictures when I was done for the night.  I might take more in better light before I work on it again.  Here's what I've got so far:

Sorry for the lack of variety in the photos.  

The first part I added was the ion arm assembly on the top left corner.  It has two mounting points in the aluminum, and I was slightly off on the bottom one so it was a little crooked at first.  I widened the hole a bit and got it close enough.

Next I added the injector tubes, the two cylinders along the left side of the body of the shell, just below the ion arm assembly and power cell window.  I might need to add some support to the inside wall where it is mounted.  I ended up using a shorter pair of screws to mount it than I intended and it worked out better.

I swapped out those screws with the ones for the HGA, the cylinder on the top right corner.  It went on pretty easily, as my template for that one was the best I'd used so far.

The part that looks like a light bulb in the pictures is a Clippard pneumatic valve that glared with my camera flash.  It also went on easily, but might be slightly off centered.  It will be hard to tell with the wires and labels and everything when all is put together, so I'm ok with it.

The last part I added was the ribbon cable clamp on the top left side of the cyclotron.  I've seen enough reference pictures that I was able to just eyeball it.

I still need to add my bumper, gun mount, vac tube, booster assembly, filler tubes, crank knob, PPD, and some smaller tube fittings.  There's still a long way to go, but things are going in the right direction.  I'm glad to be making progress.

Thanks again for looking!

-Matt