Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

It's been far too long!

Our weekend trip to Disneyland was most excellent!  It definitely ranks up there in the top five trips we've taken (and we've been there a LOT).  I'd go into lots more detail about the trip, but...

This blog is about BUILDING things!

We chose to drive home on Monday (instead of Sunday) for several reasons: it gave us an extra full day to spend at the park, we would be driving home during daylight hours instead of in the dark, AND.... I got to swing by Reliable Hardware to pick up the remaining components for my case!

Shiny!

When I found out that they were located in North Hollywood, which we would conveniently pass by on our way home from Anaheim, I decided not to ship the materials and save the delivery cost by picking them up in person.  On any future road cases, I will either have to time my projects to fit around trips to Southern California, or pay the shipping fees. 

(Additionally, it turns out that all of the parts that I ordered from DIY Road Cases came from Anaheim - for future cases, I'm going to see if I can pick up stuff from their warehouse there as well, instead of paying thirty bucks or more in shipping costs!)

The parts that I picked up from them were as follows:

• 3' long piano hinge
• 2 - 3" swivel casters (no brakes)
• 2 - 3" swivel casters (with brakes)
• 8 - Ball corners
• 8 - Corner clamps
• 2 - Recessed handles
• 2 - Recessed latches
• J-Roller (used to smooth out ABS once adhered to the plywood)
• Keyston Heavy Duty Hi-Temp spray adhesive

 AND most importantly

•  1 sheet of black ABS laminate

 Once it was all loaded up in the back of the truck, we hit the road and headed home.

We got home late enough on Monday evening that it was too late to really resume any work on my case, and was exhausted from driving for most of the day, so I put all my new wares into the garage and went to bed.

After work yesterday, I ended up needing to run a few errands before I could work on anything.  First up was a trip to Home Depot to buy a replacement set of drill bits, as I managed to break the ONE drill bit I needed to use for drilling out holes in the aluminum and plywood that the rivets will insert into (KIDS: remember to ALWAYS remove a drill bit from a power drill you are not going to be using for a while.  Failure to do so will guarantee that you will break the bit when the power drill invariably falls off your work bench onto the concrete floor.  It turns out that drills can survive such abuse; the bits not as much).

I also picked up a set of tee-nuts, bolts and washers to use for the caster boards.

My next stop was to pick up dinner for the wife and myself.

After mealtime, I headed out to the garage to continue work.  Since the caster boards are already cut, I decided to focus on them first.  After laying down the casters and marking where the bolt holes will need to go, I drilled out the holes and filed away the splinters around the drill holes.  Next I took the tee-nuts, which are little receptacles for bolts that have barbed teeth on them to latch into the wood, and hammered them in using my rubber mallet (which won't damage the metal or the wood).

Teez Nutz

Caster bolt holes drilled

Tee-nuts installed

Once that was done, I took one of the casters and tested it out by bolting it to the board.  Everything fit perfectly! 

Caster bolted on

After making sure that everything would sit good and tight, I removed the caster from the board. 

I'm going to be painting my casterboards black, but it was too late into the evening to drag out some cardboard and apply a few coats to the boards.  Instead, I put all the tools back on the shelf, and headed inside to get some sleep.

Tonight after work I will be tackling several major tasks: I'm going to spray paint the casterboards (starting off with one coat, and see how they look and if I need to apply additional coats), and cut some of the ABS laminate and begin adhering it to the bottom panel and the top panel, which will be the first pieces that I will begin to rivet the aluminum extruded rails onto.  If I have time, I will cut the side panels for the lid, and also begin the process of measuring out the distances for each rivet to be installed onto the case (I'm going to install rivets every three inches).  If I have even more time, I may start drilling out the aluminum. 

As it stands, I may very well have this case finished by next weekend, depending on how much time I can dedicate to working on it this weekend.  Once each plywood panel has had ABS adhered to it, it needs about 24 hours of time for the glue to cure and dry.  With any luck, I should be able to get all of the ABS bonded to the plywood and the glue dried by Saturday, so I can begin the laborious task of hand riveting the side rails onto the case.