I’ve purchased all my materials and fabrication has begun! For my metal rods I used 3/4 inch electrical tubing from McGuckins. I’ve already bent the pipes into the correct shape with the pipe bender at the ITLL, with the help of a laser cut template.
This process is a little bit time consuming, but remarkably repeatable. All three of my curved sections ended up looking very similar and precisely bent.
For the wood sections, I needed to create a jig that would hold everything in the correct orientation in order to drill at a 60 degree angle into the wood, 30 degrees offset from the angle of the board. Here’s the jig in action in the drill press.
I have a few different angled holes I need to make in the wooden sections, so each time I need to change it I unscrew the section of the board from the jig and reposition it to the correct angle. This process is working well though, and the holes I have drilled so far are accurate and the tubes fit tightly in them. I’ll keep working in the machine shop over the next few weeks and I should be ready in time for my presentation!