Cut & Routed Left Shoulder Hub Hole, Installed Painted Utility Arms

The stakes just keep getting higher as work continues on the legs. It was time to cut and route the shoulder hub hole. If I messed this up, it probably would have ruined the leg. I actually felt a bit queasy as I started work.

First, I rough-cut the shoulder hub hole, in preparation for routing the hole to size with the router. The flush-cut bit used for the routing has the bearing on top, to ride along the inside of the MDF template that is screwed down to the top of the leg.



I routed the hole to size, and could finally exhale. The cut ended up just the way I needed it to be.



Once I unscrewed the template, I test fitted the hub in the leg. It fit pretty well, so I'm happy with it. More important, the hole for the hub is exactly centered in the horseshoe opening, which is what I was really stressing over.



Now that the paint has thoroughly dried on the utility arms, I was able to reinstall them in the body. I still don't like how far back the pivot point of the bottom arm sits, I may have to figure out a way to correct that some time later.



I wrapped up by preparing the right arm for shoulder hub hole cutting, I may not be able to get to that until Wednesday. We'll see.