Frame Hacking

Today I made some cuts to the frame in order to better accommodate some of the aluminum parts.

First, I marked the areas where the pocket vents go, on both the frame and skins. The pocket vents do fit the frame and skins as-is, but I like a little extra room to make minor adjustments.




I also marked the octagon port areas of the inside skins. I will cut these areas out so that the octagon ports will sit flush against the inner surface of the outer skins. I didn't actually make the cuts today, I ran out of time.



While marking up the skins, I also traced the power coupler areas of the inner skins, for later removal. This will accommodate the framed portion of the power couplers. Again, I didn't have time to actually cut these out today.



I marked the ribs and vertical planks that are adjacent to the octagon ports, and trimmed them. Again, this is to allow some room to adjust the octagon ports. This way, I won't have to worry about how the parts will line up with the corresponding holes in the skins, once the skins are attached to the frame.





Next, I routed the bottom plate of the frame to widen the octagon port area a little bit.



I then routed the pocket vent area of the frame. The pockets can actually sit on top of the base plate of the frame, but I decided to make things roomier again, just to have more room to play with.



Likewise, I hacked on the front inner skin to allow more room for the pocket vent.




I used the Dremel cutoff wheel to trim some material from the vertical rib adjacent to the front pocket vent.



Next, I addressed what I consider my biggest mistake on droid #1. On droid #1, I did not trim the top plate of the frame sufficiently in the area behind the Large Data Port. Therefore, although the wood is painted black, it's pretty easy to see this part of the frame through the LDP.



For this go-around, I used a jigsaw, followed by the router, to chop this area of the frame out.



I also routed down out a large area behind the LDP, in case I ever put a CD player in my droid, and I need the extra room for an ejecting tray or something. This has the negative effect of weakening the top plate of the frame, I hope I don't end up regretting this decision.



The good news is there is no problem seeing through the LDP now.



Finally, I trimmed the bottom side of the horizontal rib that sit just above the front power coupler, to allow more room for the power coupler to be inserted into and removed from the frame. It can be tight in there otherwise.



All of the aluminum parts are fitting well.



Tomorrow I hope to trim the octagon port and power coupler areas of the skins.