[simpits-tech] shop update with photo goodness!

[Joseph Fagner]

Damn Gene, why don't you just go ahead and finish building the rest of the
F-15?  Shit, I can see the neighbors now when you fire up the two P&W 220E
and the two tounges of flame come out the back of the shop.

Gene pokes his head outside and says "just the new heater I'm installing"

Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: simpits-tech-bounces at simpits.org
[mailto:simpits-tech-bounces at simpits.org] On Behalf Of Gene Buckle
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:49 AM
To: simpits-tech at simpits.org
Subject: [simpits-tech] shop update with photo goodness! 


The shop is basically done.  The floor is a shambling horror and something
tells me nothing short of a court order is going to get it fixed to my
satisfaction.

I'll start you off with a picture of the main door.

http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/shop/big_door.jpg

Now this isn't your average door.  That sucker covers an opening that's
16' wide and 14' tall.  It's also not the door I ordered.

The door I ordered was a much cheaper, standard garage door style.  I
ended up with this $4k roll-up monster because the crew that my builder
hired couldn't be bothered to read the plans for the building.  You see, I
specified a 14' clear interior.  This means that from the floor to the
lowest point (the bottom of the roof truss) should be 14' exactly.  You'll
notice in the picture that the top of the wall extends above the visible
portion of the truss.  THAT is the 14' mark.  The truss itself lives
somewhere in the 13' range.  This meant that the fancy scissor truss I had
to pay extra for was now too low to accomodate the "typical" style of door
I ordered.  The only door that would work is that nice & fancy roll-up you
see in the picture.  Rob wants to paint "Hangar 18" on the outside.  I'd
like "Caution: Airlock" on the inside. :)

In the last shop, winter meant one of two things - freezing to death or
being deafened & asphixiated(sp) by a thundering space heater.  This time
around I got myself a decent heater.
http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/shop/new_heater.jpg

It works great.  I keep the shop at 60 degrees to try to prevent any
condensation forming on the interior metal surfaces and to treat the
electronics to a more stable atmosphere.  It's connected to a 120 gallon
propane tank on the other side of the wall behind it.  We'll see how long
that lasts before I have to re-fill it.

That fancy orange ladder is a great place to take pictures from...
http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/shop/resting_quietly.jpg

Here's the old girl, patiently waiting to be cleaned up and worked on
again!  First up will be a new cradle.  It's not safe to work on with this
transport cradle.  The new cradle will bring the cockpit up higher to make
it a bit easier to work on and I'm going to use 6" castering wheels to
make moving it around the shop a lot easier.

I've been tool shopping in order to build some of the other projects on
the list.

http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/shop/cnc_foam1.jpg

This is a Tekoa CNC hot-wire foam cutter.  It's currently about 3/4 built
and is the project of my friend Dave.  We're going to be using this to cut
foam wing and fuselage cores for some of the R/C airplane projects we want
to do this winter.

The mega-uber-holy-crap toy^H^H^Htool, is this little baby:
http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/mega_toy.jpg

What can be cooler than combining a printer with a frickin' laser beam?
(shark optional)

This is an Epilog Laser Mini-24.  It's got a 12"x24" work surface with a
45 Watt CO2 laser inside.  I've done some experimental engraving with it
using some of the material samples that were included with the unit.
Combine the concepts of "cat's ass", "bees knees", "spiffy" and "k-rad!"
and you're nearly there. :)  This thing is going to be a VERY fun toy to
play with!  I'll be able to make very accurate representations of Type 5
and Type 7 edge-lit panels with it as well as cut out wood & plastic parts
for the R/C projects.  Wheee! :)

g.



 --
"I'm not crazy, I'm plausibly off-nominal!"

Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.

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Thanks!


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