and the pieces needed hadn't been cut over the weekend . . .
so the first two hours was cutting and bending 2mm aluminium sheet into angles of various web sizes and then cutting to length and trimming notches into the ends to allow for the "centreflex" hinge to meet.
Then drill and countersink for rivets to hold it in place.
I have decided to try and do without the face rivets for all the trim angles.
The flanges are smaller and the large rivets would look a little strange.
So we are riveting in the gap between the frame and the door.
For this reason the rivets need to be countersunk to avoid problems with clearance and having to make the gap too large.
This process works quite well and the results are promising in the first couple of bins.
Unfortunately it highlights a very small problem - the bending tool used for the angle is also used to bend much rougher material (like "chequer-plate") which has left surface imperfections in the tool which have transferred to the aluminium.
The worst ones are fortunately on the inside edge where they cannot be seen when the bin doors are closed.
There is not much which can be done here and I will have to console myself with the thought that a small amount of use when finished will probably result in much worse markings . . .
This one also shows the previously mentioned problem of finishing the lifting point tubes which will be capped later.
Most of the bin doors close along the lower edge where the design does not have a bottom runner exposed.
Only one or two bins require edging all around or at least on three sides and therefor have to be mitred.
This one is for the gas bottle storage bay.
Looks OK at this stage. . .
The pace picked up a little after lunch and all of the lockers along the bottom edge are now done and one of the upper bins. The main doors are cut and mitred and just resting in place waiting for silicon and rivets tomorrow.
That leaves only the corner caps, which I want to be welded (which causes a little consternation) but the weld can be ground smooth and be placed on the top where you will have to be in a tree or on a tall ladder to even get a glimpse so I am not too bothered by that problem.
The current schedule calls for all that to be out of the way probably by after lunch tomorrow.
Then it will get a cleanup in preparation for (what I think will be a whole day of) finishing every aluminium edge with a thin fillet of silicon.
Fortunately there is a guy who is considered "the neatest finisher on the planet" who will be left to do all that bit.
So . . . with luck Wednesday late or Thursday will see it ready for pickup . . .
Famous last words . . .
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