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| The pebble embedded |
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| The pebble popped out. |
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Vulnerable Plywood
I'm not sure when this happened but after I flipped the hull over I noticed a small pebble (~ 1/2") embedded in the plywood. It must have been on the ground when the hovercraft was placed on the ground. More evidence that I need to get some skid plates on the bottom asap.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Plywood sides for lift fan cutout
I've added some plywood sides for the lift fan cutout. Reinforcing the strength of the hull for the extra stressed sections, and protecting the foam some more.
Round 1:
Round 2:
Due to a lack of clamps I had to do this in two shots. And each piece only got 3 clamps. I had to go back and do a little rework to reglue a few corners where the plywood warped or the underlying surface was slightly recessed and I needed more localized pressure. Another improvement would have been to use 6" backing boards for applying the pressure to avoid the warping. However I didn't have any on hand so I just went ahead with the direct clamping.
Here's a photo of the touch up I did, after flipping it back over.
Round 1:
Round 2:
Due to a lack of clamps I had to do this in two shots. And each piece only got 3 clamps. I had to go back and do a little rework to reglue a few corners where the plywood warped or the underlying surface was slightly recessed and I needed more localized pressure. Another improvement would have been to use 6" backing boards for applying the pressure to avoid the warping. However I didn't have any on hand so I just went ahead with the direct clamping.
Here's a photo of the touch up I did, after flipping it back over.
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| Gluing down a few extra corners. |
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Sanding down the corners
My gluing has left several rough edges where the plywood stuck out so I spent a while today taking those off with the belt sander. Here's my timelapse:
This took longer than I expected. One of the challenges was that I discovered that I was not getting the suction from vacuum, nor the impeller built into the sander. I discovered that although I had previously cleared the foam from the intake. There was still foam in the narrow passage between the back of the belt on it's way to the impeller. The passage is about as deep as the sander is wide. But it's only about half a cm tall. And the foam pieces clog that up pretty well. To discover and clear that clog I had to take apart the belted gearbox which drives the impeller and sander.
Sanding without the suction left a lot of dust:
At the end you can see me getting ready to add plywood to the sides of the lift fan cutout.
This took longer than I expected. One of the challenges was that I discovered that I was not getting the suction from vacuum, nor the impeller built into the sander. I discovered that although I had previously cleared the foam from the intake. There was still foam in the narrow passage between the back of the belt on it's way to the impeller. The passage is about as deep as the sander is wide. But it's only about half a cm tall. And the foam pieces clog that up pretty well. To discover and clear that clog I had to take apart the belted gearbox which drives the impeller and sander.
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| The sander partially dissassembled to clear the clogged exhaust vent. |
At the end you can see me getting ready to add plywood to the sides of the lift fan cutout.
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