Final days of construction!

On Tuesday, Marshall and I finished the step supports - 44 of them, nicely 3-ply laminate with only one seam.

Wednesday night, Danny Darnell came up to help. We quickly put him to his knees drawing a circle on the garage floor (to align the discs). I joked about adding more than just the 7 & 9 foot diameter circles - creating a target. Hint: Don't try to use string - circles won't be even.

Finished circles - very nice!

On Thursday, Marshall and I connecting boxes (we made 88) to the step supports. Nicely done! We got 23 together and trucked them over to Rob's barn. Sharon showed up just as we were about to glue it up so rather than letting Marshall go, we made her help glue! Thanks Sharon!

Back in the garage, neatly stacked boxes are falling everywhere. Actually, Marshall thought it would be fun to have them collapse on him - it was!

Moment of dread and panic - I thought I needed two more boxes! Ugh! Turned out I didn't = PHEW - I had folding & gluing the things.

6:00pm, the box supply is dwindling, you can see the back of the garage!

A second stack of boxes + step supports is ready to go - just needs to dry.

Here's half of the wheel! We used the rope to tighten it all together, plus bricks to weigh it down. Marshall walked around it to compress things & get the glue to stick better. Faith took a ride over later to check it out and add more bricks.

As of 7:40pm on Thursday, we're waiting for glue to dry and for Jami to arrive. She's purchasing paint - making a command decision because Fred's computer can't figure out how to do brighter colors with the drab deck & patio paint base. We'll paint it in the morning!

What's left to do?
1. Glue up the 2nd round of boxes & step supports.
2. Glue on the discs & connect it together.
3. Fold up our walkways & glue down.
4. End-cap the discs with silicone. Outer coating with 3" gorilla tape.
5. Caulk at will - we've got lots.
6. Paint.
7. Build a carrier for the car. I'm planning to build a rack and ramp using some 2x4s.
8. Sew up some squirrel tails!
9. Get to the lake on time & have a great day on Saturday.

I think we might actually get to go to bed on Friday night this year!

Building the Components.

Here's Marshall getting ready to glue in the inserts for our step supports. We need 44 of these.



Now we're also folding up custom boxes (with a symmetric trapezoidal taper
and internal fold (origami style). 4 of these boxes will float 343 lbs. We expect to have 8 in the water plus 8 more partially submerged - floating ~1200 lbs.

We need 88 of these (ugh - very tedious!).





We also have a supervisor - she's got her baby. Only ran off 3 times so far - so sneaky for a big dog, just glides out the garage door behind you.













Quick trip to Woodland to get some photos for a slide show. Dennis was kind enough to share his military vehicle collection with us - Marshall was extatic and must have killed hundreds of enemies!

It begins again - Pirate Squirrel Wheel - 2011!

Today was a big day. We started with lesson on levers & the fulcrum (not pictured). Then we rebuilt our second table. Marshall had his first lesson on the chop saw - very careful guy, also good at cutting - within 1/32 by his 2nd cut.




Marshall's getting pretty good with the impact drill.
On to making the template for the disc segments. Marshall's sanding here.

Cutting out stacks of disc segments - we cut over 80 of them today.

Making faces...















Here's our pile of disc segments - they will become three 4-ply wheels, 7' ID, 9'OD. Marshall successfully cut out the last several with the reciprocating saw.















Just doing some math on a handy surface...


At the end of the day we'd cut out all the pieces for the discs and the steps - the gluing will probably start tomorrow, we need to design a cardboard folder too. They also delivered a logging machine for next door - of all goes well I might get a Mt. St. Helens view for a few years.

Lunch? We only wanted to eat 1/2 pizza with our salads. To avoid eating too much, the frozen pizza went through the chop saw! Now there's another half for tomorrow.