You know...Short skirts are back

So now with an odd-shaped surfboard-on-wheels cluttering up the garage (it was at this point we realized that the fender was now too large to wheel through the side gate to the house, let along through a normal sized door), it was onto the skirt - that's the bit with the bubbles coming out of it! The design called for a 1” thick internal frame top and bottom to locate the skirt sides, with internal bracing to establish the right dimensions. I calculated that if I were careful (!), we could cut out the frame for the top of the skirt from the top sheet of the fender, and use off-cuts for the bracing. That just left the frame for the base of the skirt - rather than choosing the logical options of just going out and buying an entire fresh piece of ply for that, I chose to frame together individual lengths of wood in an effort that the Grand Duke of Mitre would be proud of (the picture below shows my final effort sitting on top of the fender base), before we cut out the top frame.

 

While ecologically sound, (much of a new sheet would have ended up as scrap), this victory of economics over structural strength lasted as far as the first sides of the skirt were secured to it, before ripping apart under the torsional strain. As you can see from the pictures below, while the read and side panels of the skirt are relatively flat, the forward panels undergo a quite significant transition from bottom to top. The coffee mug is holding down our plans, as we try to see (once more) what seems to have gone wrong...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After threatening to set fire to the blasted thing (not the only time the thought has crossed my mind so far), I set to work with braces, tacks and more lashings of construction adhesive. Once we had reinforced our handiwork, next was the problem of the twist in the side panels, particularly the front two pieces. Particularly as I had chosen 1/4" ply, vice the 1/8" suggested in some of the build material. While this allowed the skirt to support its own weight (which is what I will tell people who don't read this when they ask why the sides are so thick), it really didn't want to bend! Hey – guess what, the torsional strain broke my reinforcing again! At this point of the build, though, it was make or break time. So clamps, tacks, glue and swearing were employed in equal measure to achieve the fit. Who cares that some of the sides didn't quite match up, and were at odd angles...that's what jigsaws and circular saws are for (by this stage the Harrison's relationship with Mr Ryobi had moved to Platinum status). The photo below shows the skirt framed and attached, and the exotic angles of some of the joins...

 

At this point Tegan became more that intimate with applying spackle (and large quantities of it, as you can see from the panel gaps). And the joys of sanding. And spackling. And sanding...

 

Scarily enough (for something that a Harrison is building), after about a month and a half, the Dalek was actually starting to resemble the picture in the plan. Which normally means we have left something vital out, or it is about to fall in a heap again. Anyhow, onwards and upwards.