Sixth (11/11/10 - 14/11/10)

Having thought my jig was complete I soon noticed one key aspect of the design was missing. When I tried a few tester pieces on it, getting the negative curve former (the part which slots on top) in all the way was a problem, as the acrylic would jut out from the one sided trough, it's hard to put it into words but sadly I forgot to take a picture of said situation. The fix to this was easy though, I cut a slice off the negative former and glued into into the jig creating the trough from which the material would sit and not jut out. With that done I got onto testing it out again with mixed results, in that the clamps which held the former under pressure had to be balanced on either side and already at the correct distance apart so they can be clamped in place quickly as time is of the upmost importance.

While trying out it with veneer and tightening the clamps I heard the former jig crack, thankfully no damage was done by obviously I needed to fill the gaps between the splines some more; this was done by simply slotting down correctly sized pieces of 12mm MDF (photos of this will appear in the next update).

On my first attempt at the final piece my calculations came up too long and the finished piece was 30mm longer than it should have been, but this is fine as I can use the curves for the middle compartment. I altered my methods in that once one side was heat bent, I'd turn it round so it met the other side of the jig, clamp it down and then heatbend the straight side down over the jig. This is instead of slotting it into the trough and hoping the heat bent curve on the other side matches the jig.

Enough talking here are photos of the heatbent pieces; the veneer and the too long acrylic:

A small slice of acrylic to test out the new method of heatbending to make sure it goes to the correct length:

The smaller slice under the CNC side: