Adjusted Angle on Skirt Ribs

Today I had a little time to work on the ribs that get glued to the styrene curve of the skirt. Matthew and I rough-cut these a long time ago, and now I'm finally getting around to using them.

As they are currently cut, the pointy part of the rib does not reach to the bottom of the base plate of the skirt.



A steeper angle needs to be cut on the miter saw.



I did some trial-and-error cuts with a spare piece, until I found an angle that worked well.



Even then, the angle doesn't work for every rib position, particularly the corner ribs. This was the case with droid #1 as well. I'll just fill this in with paintable caulk or something similar.



Before gluing the ribs in place, I need to turn the skirt upside down and sand the top smooth, to ensure that the styrene and wood pieces are perfectly even with each other.

I plan to use a router table to cut the ribs to the proper length once they've been glued down. That technique didn't work so well with droid #1, but this time I'm using MDF instead of wood with fibers, so I'm expecting things to go better this time. I sure hope I'm right.