--- r e f l e X i o n ---

[Xion X2]

It was time to play with the new routing table. Here I'm running just a spare piece of plexi through it to test. I'm routing through with my trusty Bosch upspiral straight bit. It's the same one that I used in my RotoZip.



You can't beat the smooth, clean finish this bit leaves behind. Just look how smooth it carves out the plexi (the cut on the top right.)



I bought a standard straight bit by SKIL, but it doesn't even compare to this upspiral. It wasn't carving clean.. it was causing the plexi to foam and melt around the edges. So I took it out and threw in the Bosch upspiral, and all is well again.

So what are we doing tonight.. well, we're doing a little rework. I know, I know.. no one likes to do things over, especially me. But as goes this project, so goes a good part of my time, money and.. well, life, basically. I've invested a lot into this work, so if an opportunity presents itself to make a part of it better, then I will.

In the last update, I showed how the bottom shelf in the Zero Gravity Chamber was buckling a little due to the weight of the SSD shelf. We were able to remedy that by making that bottom shelf out of 1/4" plexi instead of the 1/8" that was used originally. In addition, the original mount for the SSD shelf was very simplistic and rather ineffective. It was a straight join with weld-on, and while it will hold okay, there are more effective ways to bond two shelves together.

So tonight, we're going to explore a better way of joining the Zero-G shelves together by cutting and routing some 1/4" plexi to replace the 1/8" plexi that's currently in the chamber.

Here I am marking the SSD shelf location.



Where you see the shelf rest, we'll be routing a groove out in that bottom shelf for it to fit snug in. Here, I'll show.

Lined up on the routing table.



I've set my depth at 1/8". Remember that we're not carving through the shelf but just routing a groove out for our SSD shelf to fit snug in.



The depth of the rip fence on this table is too shallow, so I had to remove it and replace it with an aluminum angle positioned far enough back to route a little more than 3 inches into the shelf.

Here's the end product. A nice, clean straight groove cut into our shelf.





That turned out really well and was a lot easier than setting up a straight edge and cutting with the RotoZip. Having a bench just allows you better leverage, along with square cuts.

So, now it was time to cut a new SSD shelf in 1/4" plexi to replace the 1/8" piece. Time to crank up the new toy.



My new Ryobi table saw with 30 in. adjustable width to the right of the blade.

I moved it into the back corner of my shop next to the routing table.



It was fun using a handsaw to cut this stuff until it became difficult to make square cuts even with a straight edge. The Skilsaw kept getting hung in the plexi which would cause it to drift a little.

I admire anyone who has both the patience and skill to use hand tools for everything, but my philosophy is if there's a better, quicker, more precise way to do something, then that's the way I'm going. And this table saw will save me a lot of headaches and a lot of time. I'm doing a lot of work with plexi in this build and will in future builds as well.

The thing I noticed immediately with the table saw was how simple it was to square off a piece of material. Two of the four sides of my plexi sheet were not square because of the Skilsaw drifting, and I was able to correct that in a matter of minutes.



Ok, the first test... how well can it cut through not just plexi but tougher material, like solid state drives...



Anyone want to take a guess?



I'd have to be out of my freaking mind and then some, obviously.

No, what I'm doing here is measuring off that SSD shelf, because I'm going to cut the new shelf to the same exact size.

Lining up the cut with the miter fence.



We'll be cutting right along that line for our shelf width.

And away we go.







Notice that I'm feeding the blade while standing to the right and out of the kickback path. Important safety tip for anyone who's doing this for the first time.

And after what seems like far too easy a job, we're through. Here you can see the nice, clean cut it gives us. I'm using 180 tooth 10" Irwin blades made for plastic and plywood.





Ok, retrieving our shelf that we had routed the groove in before...



And we'll slide the new SSD shelf down in that groove..



Voila.

We'll secure the two pieces with weld-on. This should give us a cleaner and more secure bond than just bonding two flat pieces together.. especially with the more sturdy 1/4" plexi.




And, using our old SSD shelf as a template, we'll mark the drillholes for the new shelf...



And those will be drilled shortly.

Thanks for reading; that's it for tonight. Time for me to clean up some of this plexi dust before I get caught in a blizzard.