--- r e f l e X i o n ---

[Xion X2]

Thanks man.

LOL, PLEXI RUN AND HIDE! Hahahaha, and as for the attention to detail; I would fall into the latter category. Absolutely LOVE your attention to detail. Keep up the good work.

Of topic: I'll have to go pick me up one of those grinding kits. >_>

Thanks, Couch.

Love it.

Also, yeah, grinding stones are your friend. TBH, I probably would have ended up doing a lot of that with a hand file though...I'm kinda a control freak with that stuff sometimes.

Thanks, x88x. I started out with files, but it was taking waaaaaay too long.


Project Update --


Ok, these hands are ready to go back to work.

But.. wait. Forgot something important.

Entering Ninja Mode...

Ready for anything... ready even for a tool that'd be in my hands for the first time.

The Skilsaw. I found her on sale for 24.99$ at Home Depot. A real steal, I thought.

Okaayyy.. depth adjustment looks good.

This is actually the first time I'm using one of these. It's probably etched in my memory as the tool I remember seeing my father use the most as I was growing up (I'm in my early thirties if any of you were wondering.) So I was anxious to get the feel of it by cutting some 1/4" plexi.

Oh, sorry.. I almost forgot to explain why we're breaking out the Skilsaw in the first place.

Tonight, I'm doing some more work on the Zero-G Chamber. Notice the bottom shelf in this picture. It's buckling a little down the middle with the SSD shelf resting on it.

To remedy this, I planned to experiment with some thicker plexi just for that bottom shelf. Instead of 1/8" I would try 1/4". This stuff is too thick to cut/break with my bending brake, so I needed a way to cut it. And after doing some research, it seemed like a circular saw was the way to go.

For blades, I'm using 140 tooth 7 1/4" Avanti made for cutting plastics and plywood. You'll notice the teeth are shorter than what you often see on your standard sawblades.

Set-up complete. Shelf length and width marked with the sharpie. We'll be cutting along that black rectangle shown in the bottom right of the plexi sheet. And to ensure a straight cut, we'll use an aluminum angle for a straight edge.

Earplugs in, safety glasses on.

Pretty good results. The 140 tooth blades gave me a nice smooth cut. Any jagged edges you see is just the protective paper over the plexi. The cut surface is smooth to the touch. It'll need to be sanded and polished.. maybe dressed with some edge trim. We'll experiment with that later.

Here's how it looks in the frame.

The shelf no longer buckles. Yeah, my side panel's gotten some dust and dirt on it from sitting in the shop with all these tools. It's ok.. I'll clean it up with some windex and an air duster later.

Looking pretty good. Still more work to be done on the chamber. I'm still not happy with the edges of the perspex, but I'll save that for another day.

For now, I'll introduce you to my latest workshop investment.

After seeing all the magic that callen has been able to create with his routing table, I just couldn't resist. They had the Ryobi table and router down at the Depot for 99$, and I couldn't pass it up. It's just a small table, but for the work I'm doing it should suit me just fine. I spent much of tonight just assembling it, but I'll be giving it some play in the next few days. It will have some important work to do on the Zero-G Chamber.

That's all for now. Thanks again for following the making of refleXion.

[x88x]

Nice. Gotta love new tools.

I actually got my circular saw for free out of a dumpster. Some contractor had cut the cord and decided to just toss it. 30 seconds of soldering later, and I had a fully functional circular saw.

[Xion X2]

Nice. Gotta love new tools.

I actually got my circular saw for free out of a dumpster. Some contractor had cut the cord and decided to just toss it. 30 seconds of soldering later, and I had a fully functional circular saw.

Great story.

[Xion X2]

(Crysis reference)

It was time to play with the new routing table. Here I'm running just a spare piece of plexi through it to test. I'm routing through with my trusty Bosch upspiral straight bit. It's the same one that I used in my RotoZip.

You can't beat the smooth, clean finish this bit leaves behind. Just look how smooth it carves out the plexi (the cut on the top right.)

I bought a standard straight bit by SKIL, but it doesn't even compare to this upspiral. It wasn't carving clean.. it was causing the plexi to foam and melt around the edges. So I took it out and threw in the Bosch upspiral, and all is well again.

So what are we doing tonight.. well, we're doing a little rework. I know, I know.. no one likes to do things over, especially me. But as goes this project, so goes a good part of my time, money and.. well, life, basically. I've invested a lot into this work, so if an opportunity presents itself to make a part of it better, then I will.

In the last update, I showed how the bottom shelf in the Zero Gravity Chamber was buckling a little due to the weight of the SSD shelf. We were able to remedy that by making that bottom shelf out of 1/4" plexi instead of the 1/8" that was used originally. In addition, the original mount for the SSD shelf was very simplistic and rather ineffective. It was a straight join with weld-on, and while it will hold okay, there are more effective ways to bond two shelves together.

So tonight, we're going to explore a better way of joining the Zero-G shelves together by cutting and routing some 1/4" plexi to replace the 1/8" plexi that's currently in the chamber.

Here I am marking the SSD shelf location.

Where you see the shelf rest, we'll be routing a groove out in that bottom shelf for it to fit snug in. Here, I'll show.

Lined up on the routing table.

I've set my depth at 1/8". Remember that we're not carving through the shelf but just routing a groove out for our SSD shelf to fit snug in.

The depth of the rip fence on this table is too shallow, so I had to remove it and replace it with an aluminum angle positioned far enough back to route a little more than 3 inches into the shelf.

Here's the end product. A nice, clean straight groove cut into our shelf.

That turned out really well and was a lot easier than setting up a straight edge and cutting with the RotoZip. Having a bench just allows you better leverage, along with square cuts.

So, now it was time to cut a new SSD shelf in 1/4" plexi to replace the 1/8" piece. Time to crank up the new toy.

My new Ryobi table saw with 30 in. adjustable width to the right of the blade.

I moved it into the back corner of my shop next to the routing table.

It was fun using a handsaw to cut this stuff until it became difficult to make square cuts even with a straight edge. The Skilsaw kept getting hung in the plexi which would cause it to drift a little.

I admire anyone who has both the patience and skill to use hand tools for everything, but my philosophy is if there's a better, quicker, more precise way to do something, then that's the way I'm going. And this table saw will save me a lot of headaches and a lot of time. I'm doing a lot of work with plexi in this build and will in future builds as well.

The thing I noticed immediately with the table saw was how simple it was to square off a piece of material. Two of the four sides of my plexi sheet were not square because of the Skilsaw drifting, and I was able to correct that in a matter of minutes.

Ok, the first test... how well can it cut through not just plexi but tougher material, like solid state drives...

Anyone want to take a guess?



I'd have to be out of my freaking mind and then some, obviously.

No, what I'm doing here is measuring off that SSD shelf, because I'm going to cut the new shelf to the same exact size.

Lining up the cut with the miter fence.

We'll be cutting right along that line for our shelf width.

And away we go.

WWWEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR....

Notice that I'm feeding the blade while standing to the right and out of the kickback path. I've heard this is the smart thing to do...

And after what seems like far too easy a job, we're through. Here you can see the nice, clean cut it gives us. I'm using 180 tooth 10" Irwin blades made for plastic and plywood.

Ok, retrieving our shelf that we had routed the groove in before...

And we'll slide the new SSD shelf down in that groove..

Voila.

We'll secure the two pieces with weld-on. This should give us a cleaner and more secure bond than just bonding two flat pieces together.. especially with the more sturdy 1/4" plexi. :yepp:

And, using our old SSD shelf as a template, we'll mark the drillholes for the new shelf...

And those will be drilled shortly.

Thanks for reading; that's it for tonight. Time for me to clean up some of this plexi dust before I get caught in a blizzard.

[x88x]

Heheh, congrats on the new tools. It always makes things easier when you have the right tools for the job.

[Xion X2]

Thanks, x88x. Things are a lot more fun now.

I'm posting some previously unreleased shots of the build. One of them has hidden meaning.

[diluzio91]

Man... every time i see an update on this thread i feel like a kid in a candy store watching a Disney movie...

[x88x]

Shiny. ....dang it, now you have me obsessing over what the hidden meaning is...

[mofo]

Tinted window? or that one way mirrored film applique?
Curious. Very Curious.

Edit: I looked again and noticed in the bottom pic the tubing is being reflected, quite clearly. Do I win?
Edit, Edit: I do not win, the first post of his clearly states he is using a mirrored acrylic, so the mirroring is not new

[SXRguyinMA]

maybe something to do with the tubing? maybe he got hosed on something lol