Progress!

Friday afternoon my aluminum extrusions and hardware from DIY Road Cases arrived!

4 Double-Angle Extrusions, 3 Hybrid Tongue & Groove rails, 300 rivets and 200 washers

When I got off work, we headed over to Home Depot to pick up my manual rivet gun that had been delivered, as well as a 3/4" piece of wood to use for the caster boards that the casters will be bolted onto, and then attached to the bottom of the case.

Hand riveter

I also picked up some Rust-Oleum matte black to paint the caster boards.  Once I got back home, even though it was already dark out, I set up the mitre box and cut the caster boards down to size, and cut angles off the outside corners of the boards.  The angled corners will sit up against the ball corners of the case once mounted.

Making cuts for the caster board

It didn't take long to finish up the two caster boards.

Finished caster boards

All that is left to do with the caster boards is sand down the sides, and then drill out holes for T-nuts to be sunk into them (which the casters bolt into), and then paint them black.  I'll hafta wait until next week when I pick up the casters before I can drill out the holes.  I can sand them down in the meantime, but for now, these are on hold.

As it was dark and getting colder out, I stowed everything away into the garage and went in to make some dinner.  But before I closed up shop, I couldn't resist sliding one of the panels into the rails to see how it all looked.

Rails attached to the panel

This afternoon, I mounted the mitre box onto a board to help me better clamp it down to my work table.

New mitre box assembly

After I was done with that, I finished cutting up the rest of the second half of the panel into smaller pieces.  All six major sides are now cut: front, back, top, bottom, and the two sides.

Since I bought the CDX grade of plywood, it means it is unfinished, and I need to spend time sanding down the better side of the panels to make them smooth enough to accept the adhesive to bond the ABS laminate to.

I started off with 100 grit sandpaper, and moved onto 220 grit to get it ultra smooth.

Finally got to break in the sander I bought nearly a year ago

Once sanding was done, I moved onto marking the first of the four aluminum rails with the necessary measurements.  The extrusions are gonna take a while to cut, and doing so makes an annoying enough noise that I'm gonna have to cut them inside the garage with the door closed in an effort to not make the neighbors hate me.

Measured and cut rail

A yellow jacket ended up making a temporary nest on my framing square, so I spent time working on another approach to correct the still nagging curve of my boards - clamping down every corner with the bends facing apart.  Hopefully sitting overnight with additional pressure will help straighten the panels out a bit more.  Once the rails are actually riveted onto the pieces, the bend should be fixed, but getting the boards to flatten out before then will greatly assist when it comes time to glue the ABS laminate down on them.

Give 'em the clamp!

At the end of a productive day, a tasty dinner awaits!

Annie's Mac is simply the best