Robot Robs Blog: Curved rafters: Plans E through G

Someone thought throwing buns at the safety fan would be a good time. It was. The photo turned out pretty cool where you can see through the blade from the exposure.

It was a rainy weekend on the forecast which meant a full house at MakeIt Labs Adam was working on the TR6 getting the suspension back together. Riley powder coated a friends trucks on his long board. Paul was getting ready for his glass class. Rob R was working on the wall for the CNC Plasma cutter. Libby and I got to work on making curved beams.

The first setup was to put the second bevel onto the rafters this would allow them to sit flush to the main roof beam. In keeping with the ReUse theme, Libby and I have been making our own Iced tea at home and bringing it with us. I like my stainless bottles, and Bamboo Bottle for a durable (Libby and I drop them, leave them on bumpers as we drive off, etc, all the time.) We have been doing pretty good with making food at home and not going out to eat lately.

Stacks of rafters ready to be cut.

First try Plan E: Portable bad saw. We tried remounting the Portable band saw to the arm and taking small cuts. Well, the iced tea was good at least. The saw bounced and would not track. The blade pulled to the inside and left an angle on the cut. On to the drawing board

Plan F: for fail. I just had no plan F, we took a brake and grilled some food. Plan F has been the best so far.

Using a High precision Layout tool (sharpie) we used the jig as a big compass.

Plan G use the Circle cutting truss to as a giant compass. It worked. We had to remove any screws that might have been in the way of the cut and then used a jig saw and time to cut it out. the blade walked some and gave us a not so straight cut.

Libby cuts segments so we don't have a giant chunk of scrap.

Before we do any cutting we need to remove all screws one screw will (and did ) destroy a jigsaw blade.

Libby follows the line as best she can. The laminated beams were tough to keep cutting correct.

Paul gets his glass class ready for students. It is exciting when folks learn things.

Libby traces an arc to make sure no screws will get cut and damage a blade on the Jig Saw.

This is what a screw in the exact wrong position goes.

It got to a point where Libby and I gave up for the evening beyond cleaning up. We left with 14 of 24 rafters cut and no energy. Back at it in the AM.

In the morning, we started cutting but Libby had the glass class. She was making a birthday gift and learning about glass grinding.

Grinding curves into the glass chunk.

After a few hours of instruction, Libby, Mike and Nate made some very cool projects.

Celestina tests her RGB LED lights for the hamburger trailer. I am ready for her to start serving hamburgers.

Libby cut most of the rafters out after class while I worked on the peak beams and large rafters. They were all made up of 4x4's and 4x6's.

We had to pull some shallow angles that our setup tool would not do anything above 50 degree's. I use a machinist Layout Square to get the complementary angles and make a 22.5 degree angle.

Look at that giant beam waiting for some glue and a big curved cut.

This is what that big beam looks like in profile.

A detail of the main joint. It should work. In theory. it will be made in two parts and assembled with the gusset up at camp with Lag Bolts we recovered from the Pallets.