Finished Routing Booster Cover Body Pieces, Cut Top Angles

Today I went over to my friend Kelvin's house to borrow his table saw for a few weeks, as I continue to work on the booster covers. Kelvin joined me at my place, where he helped as camera man for some of the shots, and helped me build as well.

First up, routing down the rough-cut layer of the booster covers.



A rare shot of me building, usually I have to take before and after pictures on my own.



I routed down the material a little at a a time, because the poplar doesn't give way as easily as some other materials. Looks like the time was 2:42:30 PDT (as I can see in the full-res picture.)



Here's one of those before/after shots of the keyhole area.

Before:



After:



With that out of the way, it was time to set up for trimming the 9 degree angle off of the top of the booster covers on each side. Veterans of the blog may recognize the picture sitting on the table saw from droid #1. I occasionally refer back to my own blog entries to see how I set up for various stages of the build, so I can recreate the scenario later if necessary.



The blade is a blur, but we fed the booster cover through.



With (somewhat noisy) video!


Once one side was done, we flipped the piece over and ran it through again.



After a little sanding, the booster cover bodies are in great shape!



There are a few things yet to be done, including routing the horizontal groove around the booster cover to match that on the legs, and routing the vertical grooves. I'm not sure when I will do those, I may work on the dog house and head pieces first.