Elevator & Diving Controls #7

Fig. 1.  Today I started work on tidying up the conning tower's base.  Those ribs have been in the way since day one, my back has many scratches on it from crawling out of the front of the sub after welding.  I clamped the rib to the edge of the drum and did two small welds on either side of it then cut the rest of with the angle grinder.

Fig. 1.
26/12/2015

Fig. 2.  The front half complete.

Fig. 2.
26/12/2015

Fig. 3.  Both ends done.  There's a lot more room to move in there now, plus now that the ribs are welded in place I can start building the brackets that will hold the controls in place.

Fig. 3.
26/12/2015

Fig. 4.  The two 49 cm long 20 mm x 5 mm flat bars that will bolt onto the interior of the sub.  The controls will bolt onto these two bars.

Fig. 4.
26/12/2015

Fig. 5.  The control rods are all smoothed now.  I'll paint them once the perspex is cut to shape and the whole unit can be bolted to the sub.

Fig. 5.
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Fig. 6.  Here is the laser cutter template I'll use.  It'll be cut from 6 mm clear perspex.  The black is what the laser cutter will keep, the white is what will be cut out.  It took about an hour to design this one; I had to use Blender to make some of the control hub in 3D so that I could measure the centers of all the mounting holes and get 2D coordinates for the Laser Software.  I tested it on a few perspex off-cuts and I had to make a few tweaks for everything to line up nicely, and once I get some more perspex I'll cut two of them out and put them together.

Fig. 6.
26/12/2015