Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
- Thread starter asalaw
- Start date
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
lollol
That's a whole can of worms, and I'll deal with it tomorrow -- cuz today, it sure as hell dealt with me...
Hehehe.... Boy, did YOU ask the right question...
lollolThat's a whole can of worms, and I'll deal with it tomorrow -- cuz today, it sure as hell dealt with me...
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Hey, everybody! Lots to post today, so it'll take a while, and there's more than just the fins to talk about. I've been doing other little detail projects too, with varying degrees of success, and I'm actually going to be doing a little work at home even as I clean up around this war zone of an apartment and make sure my suit is nice and pressed and lawy-looking for my new gig tomorrow (I hate it when they demand business attire on the first day of a project. I'm a very "biz casual" kinda guy).
And off we go!
So, fins. Yeah, man... fins...
What a mess I made of this part of the project! Something so simple, and yet I decided I'd get all fancy with it and make The World's Greatest Phaser Fins.
Um, no, it's not, it turns out.
Coincidentally, when I consulted with the head DC* at Techshop on a related machining issue, he recommended I watch a series of YouTube videos by this guy who goes by "tubalcain." He's a retired shop teacher who's forgotten more about machining metal than most people will ever learn, and his videos are amazing.
This is the link to the one that started me down the road to ruin.
It's a video showing three methods for precisely laying out holes for drilling, two of which use a height gage, and we've got a sweet height gage in the machine shop.
Just look at all that sweet, height-gagey deliciousness!
The thing to the left of it is... um... one of those big steel machine shop thingies that's, like, all straight and flat and stuff. I don't remember what it's called, but my groin muscles are really pi§§ed off at it, so maybe it's best we're not on speaking terms.
So I thought to myself, "Self, why not adapt tubalcain's old-timey shop method to make insanely straight and exact cut lines, which I can then make grotesquely jagged when I try to cut them out on the bandsaw?" Okay, not exactly, but that's the way I should've said it to myself. So yeah, it's actually my fault for not warning me I was headed for trouble. My cuts did come out nice and straight later on, just not on the bandsaw....
To set up for this, first you need a very flat, perfectly smooth surface. Machine shops usually have a slab of perfectly ground steel for this, but Techshop doesn't seem to for some reason. Maybe they don't like flat things.
Here's what I came up with at first: a nearby anvil (new to the shop, so I missed it at first glance). But not so great, because there's really no room on it to work. But it was fine for making sure the gage was good and zero was actually zero (and when, you ask, is zero not zero? When I'm the one doing the math, that's when. sigh.).
So I realized the welding tables are perfectly flat, and as long as I used the side farthest away from the actual welding positions, it wouldn't be a lunar landscape of tiny steel slag drops. Turned out it was, just much less so, which left me room to set up and slide my gage around with relative ease.
So you start by figuring out the width of your fins, which I got by measuring the ones on my Wand phaser: 0.906", give or take a thousand feet. Meh.
Then you set the height gage to exactly 0.906", after you spend 15 minutes figuring out how to operate a fµçking height gage in the first place. Hint: use your calipers to double-check. It's like math -- if your answer is the same as the one in the back of the book, you did it right (or you got very, very lucky). In fact, it is math -- no wonder I suck at it.
Once the height gage is set to the correct height, and the bottom edge of the metal you're going to mark is perfectly straight, you just rest the metal against your perfectly vertical slab of groin-killing steel death and drag your height gage across it like this:
As long as your surface is perfectly flat, your height gage is correct, the nuts are correctly tightened, the bottom edge of your sheet metal is perfectly straight, Dr. Deathslab is perfectly vertical, and there are no tiny little bits of dust or shavings underneath your instruments, it's pretty easy!
So when I saw what a perfectly straight line I could get this way, I thought, "Self, now that you're on a roll, why not mark out the entire fin outline this way, and get perfectly marked-out fins?"
Tell me again how a middle-aged, math-addled lawyer
who can't figure out a tip without his iPhone and a CalTech
consultant is going to calculate those dimensions. I think it's so cute.
I thought I had a picture of this disaster that cost me 30 minutes all by itself, but mercifully I think my iPhone flushed it down the cyberloo. It's really for the best.
So here's where I ran back to mommy, which is what I now call the laser cutter. I just created a template in Illustrator and cut myself out a pair of stencils in acrylic.
The tiny squares in a pile on the left are spacers for the fins. You might notice I used a much smaller sheet of plastic stock than usual and didn't cut out 5 million of these things. There's a rea$on for that.
Once I had the stencils, marking the aluminum was even easier than with the height gage. I just Scotch taped the stencil on the aluminum, and traced it with a machinist's scribe:
I numbered them 1 - 4 from bottom to top, because it's very easy to confuse them once they're cut out. Funny I didn't think to do that on the actual stencils.
After I cut them out on the bandsaw (which oddly enough went very well), I marked them for filing with a blue Sharpie -- just mark the parts to be filed away, and file them away till there's no more blue.
Here's a useful tip: When you're filing the edge of something thin like this, mount it as close as possible to the edge of your vise to maximize control and help keep it from bending out of shape when you file it. You want just the parts you're going to file away to be exposed. I also like to place my front wood block just a hair lower than the rear one, so I'm better able to see my markings. Remember, this only works if you file properly -- in one direction, away from you.
After I finished filing the contours on #1 (the bottom fin), here's how it looked:
And with 2, 3, and 4 staring me in the face, after taking about 30 minutes filing #1 to shape, I suddenly realized. "WTF am I doing?!"
And that sent me racing back to the machine shop.
More on what I did next in a little bit, but right now I have to do a couple of things around the house to get ready for job tomorrow. (Job is what I do for a living, work is what I do at Techshop. The distinction reminds me to keep things in perspective in life, and that way I don't go crazyballs with depression and stick my head in a document shredder while I'm at job.)
Hey, everybody! Lots to post today, so it'll take a while, and there's more than just the fins to talk about. I've been doing other little detail projects too, with varying degrees of success, and I'm actually going to be doing a little work at home even as I clean up around this war zone of an apartment and make sure my suit is nice and pressed and lawy-looking for my new gig tomorrow (I hate it when they demand business attire on the first day of a project. I'm a very "biz casual" kinda guy).
And off we go!
So, fins. Yeah, man... fins...
What a mess I made of this part of the project! Something so simple, and yet I decided I'd get all fancy with it and make The World's Greatest Phaser Fins.
Um, no, it's not, it turns out.
Coincidentally, when I consulted with the head DC* at Techshop on a related machining issue, he recommended I watch a series of YouTube videos by this guy who goes by "tubalcain." He's a retired shop teacher who's forgotten more about machining metal than most people will ever learn, and his videos are amazing.
This is the link to the one that started me down the road to ruin.
It's a video showing three methods for precisely laying out holes for drilling, two of which use a height gage, and we've got a sweet height gage in the machine shop.
Just look at all that sweet, height-gagey deliciousness!
The thing to the left of it is... um... one of those big steel machine shop thingies that's, like, all straight and flat and stuff. I don't remember what it's called, but my groin muscles are really pi§§ed off at it, so maybe it's best we're not on speaking terms.
So I thought to myself, "Self, why not adapt tubalcain's old-timey shop method to make insanely straight and exact cut lines, which I can then make grotesquely jagged when I try to cut them out on the bandsaw?" Okay, not exactly, but that's the way I should've said it to myself. So yeah, it's actually my fault for not warning me I was headed for trouble. My cuts did come out nice and straight later on, just not on the bandsaw....
To set up for this, first you need a very flat, perfectly smooth surface. Machine shops usually have a slab of perfectly ground steel for this, but Techshop doesn't seem to for some reason. Maybe they don't like flat things.
Here's what I came up with at first: a nearby anvil (new to the shop, so I missed it at first glance). But not so great, because there's really no room on it to work. But it was fine for making sure the gage was good and zero was actually zero (and when, you ask, is zero not zero? When I'm the one doing the math, that's when. sigh.).
So I realized the welding tables are perfectly flat, and as long as I used the side farthest away from the actual welding positions, it wouldn't be a lunar landscape of tiny steel slag drops. Turned out it was, just much less so, which left me room to set up and slide my gage around with relative ease.
So you start by figuring out the width of your fins, which I got by measuring the ones on my Wand phaser: 0.906", give or take a thousand feet. Meh.
Then you set the height gage to exactly 0.906", after you spend 15 minutes figuring out how to operate a fµçking height gage in the first place. Hint: use your calipers to double-check. It's like math -- if your answer is the same as the one in the back of the book, you did it right (or you got very, very lucky). In fact, it is math -- no wonder I suck at it.
Once the height gage is set to the correct height, and the bottom edge of the metal you're going to mark is perfectly straight, you just rest the metal against your perfectly vertical slab of groin-killing steel death and drag your height gage across it like this:
As long as your surface is perfectly flat, your height gage is correct, the nuts are correctly tightened, the bottom edge of your sheet metal is perfectly straight, Dr. Deathslab is perfectly vertical, and there are no tiny little bits of dust or shavings underneath your instruments, it's pretty easy!
So when I saw what a perfectly straight line I could get this way, I thought, "Self, now that you're on a roll, why not mark out the entire fin outline this way, and get perfectly marked-out fins?"
Tell me again how a middle-aged, math-addled lawyer
who can't figure out a tip without his iPhone and a CalTech
consultant is going to calculate those dimensions. I think it's so cute.
I thought I had a picture of this disaster that cost me 30 minutes all by itself, but mercifully I think my iPhone flushed it down the cyberloo. It's really for the best.
So here's where I ran back to mommy, which is what I now call the laser cutter. I just created a template in Illustrator and cut myself out a pair of stencils in acrylic.
The tiny squares in a pile on the left are spacers for the fins. You might notice I used a much smaller sheet of plastic stock than usual and didn't cut out 5 million of these things. There's a rea$on for that.
Once I had the stencils, marking the aluminum was even easier than with the height gage. I just Scotch taped the stencil on the aluminum, and traced it with a machinist's scribe:
I numbered them 1 - 4 from bottom to top, because it's very easy to confuse them once they're cut out. Funny I didn't think to do that on the actual stencils.
After I cut them out on the bandsaw (which oddly enough went very well), I marked them for filing with a blue Sharpie -- just mark the parts to be filed away, and file them away till there's no more blue.
Here's a useful tip: When you're filing the edge of something thin like this, mount it as close as possible to the edge of your vise to maximize control and help keep it from bending out of shape when you file it. You want just the parts you're going to file away to be exposed. I also like to place my front wood block just a hair lower than the rear one, so I'm better able to see my markings. Remember, this only works if you file properly -- in one direction, away from you.
After I finished filing the contours on #1 (the bottom fin), here's how it looked:
And with 2, 3, and 4 staring me in the face, after taking about 30 minutes filing #1 to shape, I suddenly realized. "WTF am I doing?!"
And that sent me racing back to the machine shop.
More on what I did next in a little bit, but right now I have to do a couple of things around the house to get ready for job tomorrow. (Job is what I do for a living, work is what I do at Techshop. The distinction reminds me to keep things in perspective in life, and that way I don't go crazyballs with depression and stick my head in a document shredder while I'm at job.)
Last edited by a moderator:
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Okay -- cat fed -- check.
Suit good to go for tomorrow -- check.
What's that bouncing? -- check.
Where was I? Oh, yeah -- racing to the machine shop.
Alright, alright. I was rolling to the machine shop.
Happy now?
So I thought, what am I doing cutting out pieces that I have to file all the way around? Use the ol' tubalcain height gage method to mark out blank strips in the correct width, then chop them out on the shearer. The resulting, perfectly straight 0.906" strips could then be marked for length and that big middle slot, and I'd only have to file down the front, the insides, and finally the corners to get that nice little radius.
I had brought a backup sheet of 16ga 6061 aluminum that I ordered months ago just to have it around in that gage, and it was 12" X 24" (up till now, I'd been working with scrap I'd collected over time all around the shop -- small pieces, but free). I chopped it in half, and took one of the resulting 12" x "12 sheets and cut that into three 4" X 12" sheets. Then I took one of those small sheets and marked it into strips exactly 0.906" X 4", and chopped me up a whole pile of little strips. Then I marked them with the stencils. (I'm going to create a new stencil down the road that will just be the negative space for the center cut-out on the fin, which will make it much easier to mark a piece of metal that's less than 1" wide.)
After the bandsaw, the difference just jumped right off the bench at me:
Perfectly straight sides and backs, exactly equal widths, and WAAAAAAY less filing!
And off I went, with my largest and most aggressive files since I was in a hurry, and this isn't a fine contour job like the bottom plate on the handle.
L - R: Hughie, Dewey, Louie, Chewie, and Ragnar Metalfµçker.
Two of them have seen better days, unfortunately...
"Dana, have we ironically lost our cultural relevance
in a sea of conspiratorial fantasy swirling around
the very global network whose evils we labored
for years to expose, to the point that we're now
just a bad meme?"
"Yeah, Fox. Whatever."
Anyhoo...
So here's the filing rig I went with in the bench vise:
I set it up this way so I could run my file through the slot in the center. I filed out the left and right sides first this way, and that then created room to turn my file 90º and engage the bottom.
Tip: Blow off your aluminum dust when changing your workpiece around to file the next side. Too much dust obscures your markings.
So this was really going well now!
So at this point, I decided to check how #1 looked on the jig, and the phaser as well, and then compare it with the Wand fins --
It's at times like these when I recall something I've said in the past, and realize that, though I didn't fully realize it at the time I said it, my words were actually quite prophetic, insightful, and dare I say, profound. Let's see, how did I put it, back on Page 5, Post # 108? Ah, yes, it's coming back to me now:
And I don't have any 0.050 sheet. Because I never ordered any. Because I forgot all about this issue.
No choice. Gotta thin down the fins. At this point, tired as I was, I really didn't feel like sanding or filing down that much material on four fins, plus I was concerned about getting them even.
"Hey..." said my inner voice, you know, the desperate one you hear that sounds like the voice of reason, but isn't... "Hey, the knee mill has a fly cutter..."
And that's when the true horror began...
Back in a minute after a drink and a quick answer to Rob...
Next post coming up in a few.
Okay -- cat fed -- check.
Suit good to go for tomorrow -- check.
What's that bouncing? -- check.
Where was I? Oh, yeah -- racing to the machine shop.
Alright, alright. I was rolling to the machine shop.
Happy now?
So I thought, what am I doing cutting out pieces that I have to file all the way around? Use the ol' tubalcain height gage method to mark out blank strips in the correct width, then chop them out on the shearer. The resulting, perfectly straight 0.906" strips could then be marked for length and that big middle slot, and I'd only have to file down the front, the insides, and finally the corners to get that nice little radius.
I had brought a backup sheet of 16ga 6061 aluminum that I ordered months ago just to have it around in that gage, and it was 12" X 24" (up till now, I'd been working with scrap I'd collected over time all around the shop -- small pieces, but free). I chopped it in half, and took one of the resulting 12" x "12 sheets and cut that into three 4" X 12" sheets. Then I took one of those small sheets and marked it into strips exactly 0.906" X 4", and chopped me up a whole pile of little strips. Then I marked them with the stencils. (I'm going to create a new stencil down the road that will just be the negative space for the center cut-out on the fin, which will make it much easier to mark a piece of metal that's less than 1" wide.)
After the bandsaw, the difference just jumped right off the bench at me:
Perfectly straight sides and backs, exactly equal widths, and WAAAAAAY less filing!
And off I went, with my largest and most aggressive files since I was in a hurry, and this isn't a fine contour job like the bottom plate on the handle.
L - R: Hughie, Dewey, Louie, Chewie, and Ragnar Metalfµçker.
Two of them have seen better days, unfortunately...
"Dana, have we ironically lost our cultural relevance
in a sea of conspiratorial fantasy swirling around
the very global network whose evils we labored
for years to expose, to the point that we're now
just a bad meme?"
"Yeah, Fox. Whatever."
Anyhoo...
So here's the filing rig I went with in the bench vise:
I set it up this way so I could run my file through the slot in the center. I filed out the left and right sides first this way, and that then created room to turn my file 90º and engage the bottom.
Tip: Blow off your aluminum dust when changing your workpiece around to file the next side. Too much dust obscures your markings.
So this was really going well now!
Quick parenthetical/sidebar/thing stuck in the middle cuz I forgot before:
I made a little jig on the laser cutter for stacking the fins correctly for gluing. It's designed to keep them nice and straight and flush with the contour of the back of the phaser, as well as checking for fit while I'm filing the fins, so I can do that without marring the phaser itself or worrying about the phaser's imperfections throwing off my fin alignment. I cut that out Friday, glued it up, and let it set up overnight at the shop.
So at this point, I decided to check how #1 looked on the jig, and the phaser as well, and then compare it with the Wand fins --
It's at times like these when I recall something I've said in the past, and realize that, though I didn't fully realize it at the time I said it, my words were actually quite prophetic, insightful, and dare I say, profound. Let's see, how did I put it, back on Page 5, Post # 108? Ah, yes, it's coming back to me now:
That's the sound of me remembering I'm using 16 ga aluminum, which is about 0.063" thick, and the Wand fins are only 0.053 to 0.056. I know, that doesn't sound like much (1/100 of an inch), and this is just a prop, no machine tolerances here. But full-thickness 16 ga flat-out looks too thick, and it has an even worse problem: when stacked with the 0.030" acrylic spacers, 16 ga fins will not fit the back of the phaser. They'll be too tall.
And I don't have any 0.050 sheet. Because I never ordered any. Because I forgot all about this issue.
No choice. Gotta thin down the fins. At this point, tired as I was, I really didn't feel like sanding or filing down that much material on four fins, plus I was concerned about getting them even.
"Hey..." said my inner voice, you know, the desperate one you hear that sounds like the voice of reason, but isn't... "Hey, the knee mill has a fly cutter..."
And that's when the true horror began...
Back in a minute after a drink and a quick answer to Rob...
Next post coming up in a few.
Last edited by a moderator:
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Rob, Rob, Rob....
Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob...
So young, so sure of yourself, so confident in your --
Oh, wait. That's actually a pretty damn good question. Screw you, Rob.
The disk sander in the grinding room has something like 60 grit on it, and the one in the wood shop is kind of a mess in other ways. And the grinder is a 10 or 12 inch wheel. Both of them can murder a thin, flat piece like a fin, and I get really frustrated when a really aggressive wheel makes a minced pretzel of my work. It's too easy to go too far, and then I have to cut yet another fin. Also, when quenching the piece between grinds, my Sharpie marks start disappearing in a hurry. So I just avoided the issue.
Besides, at this stage, I'm only filing away those inside edges, and you can't do that on a grinder or a disk sander. And I really didn't feel like deploying my Dremel for this, though I probably should have. Either the cutoff wheel or a grinding bit or sanding drum could've saved me a fair bit of time. When I get to filing down fins 3 and 4, I'll probably go that route.
In any case, at least it's only those inside edges now. Granted I wasted a ton of time fumbling around, but when haven't I on this build?
Okay, little break now, then back with the rest of the fins and one or two other little bits.
Oh, Rob....
Rob, Rob, Rob....
Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob...
So young, so sure of yourself, so confident in your --
Oh, wait. That's actually a pretty damn good question. Screw you, Rob.
The disk sander in the grinding room has something like 60 grit on it, and the one in the wood shop is kind of a mess in other ways. And the grinder is a 10 or 12 inch wheel. Both of them can murder a thin, flat piece like a fin, and I get really frustrated when a really aggressive wheel makes a minced pretzel of my work. It's too easy to go too far, and then I have to cut yet another fin. Also, when quenching the piece between grinds, my Sharpie marks start disappearing in a hurry. So I just avoided the issue.
Besides, at this stage, I'm only filing away those inside edges, and you can't do that on a grinder or a disk sander. And I really didn't feel like deploying my Dremel for this, though I probably should have. Either the cutoff wheel or a grinding bit or sanding drum could've saved me a fair bit of time. When I get to filing down fins 3 and 4, I'll probably go that route.
In any case, at least it's only those inside edges now. Granted I wasted a ton of time fumbling around, but when haven't I on this build?
Okay, little break now, then back with the rest of the fins and one or two other little bits.
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
So, yet another nightmare...
(Well, not really. It only seems that way when you're really tired. But my worst day at the shop beats my best day doing anything else by miles and miles...)
Thick fins. Milling machine. Fly cutter. I can just use that to shave about 0.010" off of my sheet, and bam!, I'll have the right thickness.
My engineering committee thought it was a brilliant idea.
I'll cut to the chase. I have to go to job tomorrow, there's more to talk about, and the last thing I want to do is make you read any more about how I wasted my time yesterday.
Besides, at this point I was so tired, I forgot to take any more pictures.
So after another two hours, several botched attempts, a couple of meetings with DCs about it, and questioning the existence of God and Gene Roddenberry (yes, it was true despair), here's what I wound up with:
Blecch!!!
Now mind you, this kind of thing can work just fine, if you plan beforehand. particularly in the matter of work-holding (that is, securing the material in the vise properly and setting things up perfectly level). But it's not a great maneuver to pull out of your Sarlacc hole at the last minute just to avoid a little filing.
Or even a metric fµçkload of filing.
Finally, just before it was time to leave, I realized I don't have to file it down perfectly anyway. It only has to look right. And that jig I created for gluing the fins together was the perfect way to do it.
All I had to do was place the fins on the jig one at a time, and hit them with a file. It worked well on #1 with a file, but it was harder than it needed to be. So I decided to go with a very small sanding block.
Apologies -- I was really, REALLY tired by then, so I don't have a picture of the fins as they are right this minute, which is looking much better. BUT, my last task last night was cutting myself lots of small scrapwood blocks for sanding, and I'll be doing it right here at my desk during the week, and I'll post the finished pictures as soon as I'm done.
Meanwhile...
Over the last couple of weeks, I'd been thinking about the little ribs on the top of the phaser, underneath the ten-turn dial. These guys:
And I'd seen some photos on other forums showing a very interesting detail. These little ribs are not uniform rods. The two outside ones are almost straight and much thinner, and the two middle ones actually have flat sides:
So I thought I'd be really clever...
And then he said, "So I thought I'd be really clever!"
These are gonna be the most accurate ribs ever!!
Hah! Those are off by at least 0.0135"!
Probably a damn recast.
So I made them up in Illustrator. It was a pain, because I drew them all as one outline, and included the little circular base that goes under the 10-turn knob. I ended up with two alternate versions, because I wasn't 100% sure about the proportions between the ribs and the gaps, but I figured this was gonna be awesome!
Aaaaand CRAP.
At least this time it was only a couple of square inches of acrylic I messed up.
Turns out the kerf (the diameter of a cutting tool) of the laser beam is actually too wide to cut these out as a single outline, and both of them just fell apart after getting all twisty-melted during the cut. I may try going a little lower with the laser power, but I'm not expecting a huge success with this idea, so onto plan B, which was actually the first thing I tried...
I started with some 0.050" Plastruct rod, after measuring the ribs on my Wand phaser (that thing sure is coming in handy). I'd need to file them down to get the same look with the gaps and the outer ones being thinner, which sounded like it could be a mess if I just tried it one at a time, so I figured I'd join them first and then hit them with my teeny tiny files, the ones my cat files her pet mouse's nails with.
Please, sir, make it stop...
So here's how I joined them together for filing (the actual filing hasn't happened yet, because I dropped this method in favor of my brilliant laser cutting idea. STOP LAUGHING).
Basically, I just laid down a strip of painter's tape and spread my JB Kwik on it, then laid the rods on top and prodded them into alignment with a toothpick. As it cured, I cut along the edges to get rid of the excess epoxy, and peeled that up.
When the epoxy finished curing, I peeled the tape off the back and buttered up the underside, to get complete coverage and a nice, solid base that would help the styrene rods hold up under the filing.
That worked very well, but a word to the wise: don't mention "buttering up the underside" of anything if your wife is around and there are toxic fumes in the air. Results can be unpredictable.
So, yet another nightmare...
(Well, not really. It only seems that way when you're really tired. But my worst day at the shop beats my best day doing anything else by miles and miles...)
Thick fins. Milling machine. Fly cutter. I can just use that to shave about 0.010" off of my sheet, and bam!, I'll have the right thickness.
My engineering committee thought it was a brilliant idea.
I'll cut to the chase. I have to go to job tomorrow, there's more to talk about, and the last thing I want to do is make you read any more about how I wasted my time yesterday.
Besides, at this point I was so tired, I forgot to take any more pictures.
So after another two hours, several botched attempts, a couple of meetings with DCs about it, and questioning the existence of God and Gene Roddenberry (yes, it was true despair), here's what I wound up with:
Blecch!!!
Now mind you, this kind of thing can work just fine, if you plan beforehand. particularly in the matter of work-holding (that is, securing the material in the vise properly and setting things up perfectly level). But it's not a great maneuver to pull out of your Sarlacc hole at the last minute just to avoid a little filing.
Or even a metric fµçkload of filing.
Finally, just before it was time to leave, I realized I don't have to file it down perfectly anyway. It only has to look right. And that jig I created for gluing the fins together was the perfect way to do it.
All I had to do was place the fins on the jig one at a time, and hit them with a file. It worked well on #1 with a file, but it was harder than it needed to be. So I decided to go with a very small sanding block.
Apologies -- I was really, REALLY tired by then, so I don't have a picture of the fins as they are right this minute, which is looking much better. BUT, my last task last night was cutting myself lots of small scrapwood blocks for sanding, and I'll be doing it right here at my desk during the week, and I'll post the finished pictures as soon as I'm done.
Meanwhile...
Over the last couple of weeks, I'd been thinking about the little ribs on the top of the phaser, underneath the ten-turn dial. These guys:
And I'd seen some photos on other forums showing a very interesting detail. These little ribs are not uniform rods. The two outside ones are almost straight and much thinner, and the two middle ones actually have flat sides:
So I thought I'd be really clever...
And then he said, "So I thought I'd be really clever!"
These are gonna be the most accurate ribs ever!!
Hah! Those are off by at least 0.0135"!
Probably a damn recast.
So I made them up in Illustrator. It was a pain, because I drew them all as one outline, and included the little circular base that goes under the 10-turn knob. I ended up with two alternate versions, because I wasn't 100% sure about the proportions between the ribs and the gaps, but I figured this was gonna be awesome!
Aaaaand CRAP.
At least this time it was only a couple of square inches of acrylic I messed up.
Turns out the kerf (the diameter of a cutting tool) of the laser beam is actually too wide to cut these out as a single outline, and both of them just fell apart after getting all twisty-melted during the cut. I may try going a little lower with the laser power, but I'm not expecting a huge success with this idea, so onto plan B, which was actually the first thing I tried...
I started with some 0.050" Plastruct rod, after measuring the ribs on my Wand phaser (that thing sure is coming in handy). I'd need to file them down to get the same look with the gaps and the outer ones being thinner, which sounded like it could be a mess if I just tried it one at a time, so I figured I'd join them first and then hit them with my teeny tiny files, the ones my cat files her pet mouse's nails with.
Please, sir, make it stop...
So here's how I joined them together for filing (the actual filing hasn't happened yet, because I dropped this method in favor of my brilliant laser cutting idea. STOP LAUGHING).
Basically, I just laid down a strip of painter's tape and spread my JB Kwik on it, then laid the rods on top and prodded them into alignment with a toothpick. As it cured, I cut along the edges to get rid of the excess epoxy, and peeled that up.
When the epoxy finished curing, I peeled the tape off the back and buttered up the underside, to get complete coverage and a nice, solid base that would help the styrene rods hold up under the filing.
That worked very well, but a word to the wise: don't mention "buttering up the underside" of anything if your wife is around and there are toxic fumes in the air. Results can be unpredictable.
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
I'm going with the fins I've started, though, because I'm emotionally traumatized from the whole machining nightmare (seriously, we're talking nightmares where I'm naked in school and stuff), I'm halfway through filing, and I'm REALLY champing at the bit to get into making some phaser guts. If I can improve on these fins, I can always replace them later.
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Thanks, ecl!
Quite possibly not! I just took readings from my Wand phaser fins, and that's where they came out. I haven't checked my own sources for the actual measurements from the GJ prop, because I just assumed the Wand ones would be accurate, since the notch they sit in matches the MM pistol body I'm working with and I think they look really nice. I'll take another look -- for all I know, you're right.
I'm going with the fins I've started, though, because I'm emotionally traumatized from the whole machining nightmare (seriously, we're talking nightmares where I'm naked in school and stuff), I'm halfway through filing, and I'm REALLY champing at the bit to get into making some phaser guts. If I can improve on these fins, I can always replace them later.
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Thanks, ecl!
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
My source says 0.034", only 6 thou off from yours. The Wand fins are definitely around 0.054", though. I've re-checked several times with both my caliper and my micrometer, and there's no doubt. It's not perfectly uniform thickness, but they only vary by 0.002 or so either way. That's within the margin of error of my caliper, though, so it's hard to be more exact than that. Might be tiny errors in the masters, or a casting artifact, or just the Chinese messing with us again.
I have a 12" x 24" sheet of 0.034" aluminum here (I ordered a fair amount of aluminum to make a few tricorders back in the summer, which I've put off for a while), and theoretically I could do it, but I'll put that off till I've had a really good look at my photos and compared them to the way the Wand looks.
Also, both the Wand fins and my source say the gap between fins is just over 0.054", with my source calling out 0.057 and the Wand coming in at 0.054 -- again, close to the margin of error of my calipers. I think my acrylic sheet is 0.030, so I may have to revisit that.
Normally, I wouldn't be so persnickety about such tiny margins, but in the case of the fins, thickness and spacing are very important to the accuracy of the look, and tiny differences will stand out due to the stacking arrangement. If it's even slightly off, it can really look wrong.
I'll see if I can figure out what the deal is after I've had a chance to compare things.
Curiouser and curiouser....
My source says 0.034", only 6 thou off from yours. The Wand fins are definitely around 0.054", though. I've re-checked several times with both my caliper and my micrometer, and there's no doubt. It's not perfectly uniform thickness, but they only vary by 0.002 or so either way. That's within the margin of error of my caliper, though, so it's hard to be more exact than that. Might be tiny errors in the masters, or a casting artifact, or just the Chinese messing with us again.
I have a 12" x 24" sheet of 0.034" aluminum here (I ordered a fair amount of aluminum to make a few tricorders back in the summer, which I've put off for a while), and theoretically I could do it, but I'll put that off till I've had a really good look at my photos and compared them to the way the Wand looks.
Also, both the Wand fins and my source say the gap between fins is just over 0.054", with my source calling out 0.057 and the Wand coming in at 0.054 -- again, close to the margin of error of my calipers. I think my acrylic sheet is 0.030, so I may have to revisit that.
Normally, I wouldn't be so persnickety about such tiny margins, but in the case of the fins, thickness and spacing are very important to the accuracy of the look, and tiny differences will stand out due to the stacking arrangement. If it's even slightly off, it can really look wrong.
I'll see if I can figure out what the deal is after I've had a chance to compare things.
Sean
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Well I guess my source and your source should have lunch and figure this out...lol
Curiouser and curiouser....
My source says 0.034", only 6 thou off from yours. The Wand fins are definitely around 0.054", though. I've re-checked several times with both my caliper and my micrometer, and there's no doubt. It's not perfectly uniform thickness, but they only vary by 0.002 or so either way. That's within the margin of error of my caliper, though, so it's hard to be more exact than that. Might be tiny errors in the masters, or a casting artifact, or just the Chinese messing with us again.
I have a 12" x 24" sheet of 0.034" aluminum here (I ordered a fair amount of aluminum to make a few tricorders back in the summer, which I've put off for a while), and theoretically I could do it, but I'll put that off till I've had a really good look at my photos and compared them to the way the Wand looks.
Also, both the Wand fins and my source say the gap between fins is just over 0.054", with my source calling out 0.057 and the Wand coming in at 0.054 -- again, close to the margin of error of my calipers. I think my acrylic sheet is 0.030, so I may have to revisit that.
Normally, I wouldn't be so persnickety about such tiny margins, but in the case of the fins, thickness and spacing are very important to the accuracy of the look, and tiny differences will stand out due to the stacking arrangement. If it's even slightly off, it can really look wrong.
I'll see if I can figure out what the deal is after I've had a chance to compare things.
Well I guess my source and your source should have lunch and figure this out...lol
robn1
Master Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
I think you both have the same source My source says .034in. I couldn't find .034in aluminum, so I ordered .04in figuring it was close enough. But it measures a bit less than .04, so I then figured .03-something was even closer enough
I can't say how Wand came up with .05, but remember theirs is die cast zinc and has two layers of plating.
I think you both have the same source
My source says .034in. I couldn't find .034in aluminum, so I ordered .04in figuring it was close enough. But it measures a bit less than .04, so I then figured .03-something was even closer enough I can't say how Wand came up with .05, but remember theirs is die cast zinc and has two layers of plating.
asalaw
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
I've been thinking about that -- the plating is probably negligible, since plating is usually just a few atoms thick. But the casting could be the reason. It could be that at 0.034", the castings wouldn't survive demolding, particularly if they're using investment casting (aka "lost wax"). Those molds are usually broken apart with a hammer or something. Great way to make rings, maybe not so much for thin flat things.
Definitely extruded.
Screw it, I've made up my mind. This weekend I'm taking my 0.034" aluminum to the shop and chopping me some new fins. If I can't get my hands on some 0.05 clear acrylic by then, I'll just print my spacers with the clear filament they have on the Makerbot. At least I can pull those out of my Sarlacc in an hour.
I think you both have the same source
I can't say how Wand came up with .05, but remember theirs is die cast zinc and has two layers of plating.
I've been thinking about that -- the plating is probably negligible, since plating is usually just a few atoms thick. But the casting could be the reason. It could be that at 0.034", the castings wouldn't survive demolding, particularly if they're using investment casting (aka "lost wax"). Those molds are usually broken apart with a hammer or something. Great way to make rings, maybe not so much for thin flat things.
Definitely extruded.
Screw it, I've made up my mind. This weekend I'm taking my 0.034" aluminum to the shop and chopping me some new fins. If I can't get my hands on some 0.05 clear acrylic by then, I'll just print my spacers with the clear filament they have on the Makerbot. At least I can pull those out of my Sarlacc in an hour.
Sean
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Hey Rob. can you point towards a good source for .03 aluminum? all I'm finding Is over sea's..
I think you both have the same source
I can't say how Wand came up with .05, but remember theirs is die cast zinc and has two layers of plating.
Hey Rob. can you point towards a good source for .03 aluminum? all I'm finding Is over sea's..
robn1
Master Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
ebay, lots of sellers with small stock and extras. Get .04, it'll be a bit less so will be close enough.
ebay, lots of sellers with small stock and extras. Get .04, it'll be a bit less so will be close enough.
Sean
Sr Member
Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Thanks Rob. that's were I'm looking. but so far only found a sheet in china. i will keep on looking.
Sorry asalaw. don't mean to take up your thread. any update's. or Is the law getting in the way..
Thanks Rob. that's were I'm looking. but so far only found a sheet in china. i will keep on looking.
Sorry asalaw. don't mean to take up your thread. any update's. or Is the law getting in the way..
