One more for the "
Maybe the real purpose of your life is simply to serve as a warning to others" Department:
View attachment 1660339
Handy-dandy nifty jig for making sure your structural support mandible rods are perfectly aligned/unified with the mandibles themselves...
View attachment 1660340
Overhead shot
View attachment 1660341
The view from underneath.
This is so that, when you're done, you get this...
View attachment 1660342
And then you can glue your ribbing frames to these square alignment jigs, and know pre-emptively that the whole thing will fit perfectly in place.
But if you look closely, you'll see the problem immediately at the left side of the picture where the mandible meets the dome ring: the metal rods are straight, but the mandibles camber "in" by quite a bit on their journey to the front. So I had to cut off the last few square alignment jigs so they'd have enough space to take the sidewall fascia, and even so may not have enough "real estate" purchase for a full 1/8" sidewall all the way to the back.
And THIS is because...
View attachment 1660343
Back when I was first guesstimating my armature structure three years ago, I somehow came up with "9 inches on center" as the distance needed to run the length of the mandibles WITHOUT running into my mandible pits. If I had to do it again, I'd use either 9.5inches or 10 inches dead flat as my width measurement, and then I wouldn't have had this issue.
It's thankfully NOT that big of a deal, not a dealbreaker, and does NOT require me to start over with a third armature. But it does, I hope, serve as a forewarning to anyone out there who hasn't built one yet, is thinking of it, and still in the planning stages of their armature.
View attachment 1660344
So next will be the task of adding all that internal framing with 3/4" holes drilled through right where the framing butts up against the alignment jigs, placing of all the outer sidewalls, and then internal placing of all the mandible pits populated with the right greeblies. And no, since you're asking, I'm NOT sure I've got the mandible pit holes either a.) in the right place or b.) at the right diameter currently. But I'm going to add in or subtract material if/where I'm off, by once again... yup, you guessed it...
REVERSE-ENGINEERING FROM THE GREEBLIES