Center Foot Shell

The center foot shell was build pretty much the same way at the outside foot shell, although the middle foot doesn’t have any curved surfaces to I made it all from wood.

I started with the part where that foot attaches to the ankle which is made from plywood.

The front and back were made from luan plywood.  Here you can see how the edges were beveled so the edges matched up correctly.

To cut the slot I tapped the two pieces together so that they would match up when I cut them.

Here is the foot with the ends attached. I have also installed a t-nut where the angle will eventually bolt on.

I don’t have any pictures, but the sides were also made from luan playwood. I glued small strips of wood on the inside of the end panels to help attach the sides.

The bottom part of the foot shell was made just like I did for the outside feet, strips of pine cut with the appropriate angles and then attached to the bottom of the foot.

Center Leg

The center leg is one of those parts that I didn’t get a lot of progress pictures of, but it’s built just like the side legs.

The leg is made from three layers of plywood. I started with a paper template and used that to cut the outer two layers.

The center layer is just like the ankle on the outer legs. Once three layers were assembled I skinned the sides in styrene just like the outer legs. 

Coin Slots Part 2

In my last post I showed how I made the stock for the coin slots. The next step was to cut bevel along the top edge of both sides. I did this on the table saw and then sanded it to clean up the cut. Next I layed out the shape of each element.

With the layout done I first rough cut each element.

Instead of trying to cut the finished length and the angle, I instead used a mini belt sander to carefully sand them down to the finished shape.

To assemble the elements into a final part I cut a piece of luan to work as a backer. I initially marked off the position of each element but found that this wasn't the best way to assemble it accurately.

Instead I cut a series of small blocks that matched the distance between the elements. I glues in the first one and then use the blocks to get the correct spacing for the remainder.

Here is the finished coin slot assembly.

Coin Slots Part 1

To make the coin slots I started with a piece of wood cut to the correct width and height and long enough to cut all the slots from the single piece. Next I marked out the location of each of the slots.

I first tried cutting the slots individually using a router bit mounted in my drill press. Unfortunately, this technique didn’t work out well so I needed to find another approach.

Instead of trying to cut the slots individually I my router table to cut a slot all the way down the stock.

I then cut a piece of wood that was the thickness of the groove and glued pieces of it on either end of each slot.

Finally I sanded the top smooth and ended up with pretty clean slots.

Under Shoulder Detail Part 3

In my last two posts I showed how I made the cylindrical parts of the under shoulder details. Not it’s time to build the final assembly. I started by cutting pieces of dowel to make the side parts of the detail.

Between there there needs to be another dowel to hold the smaller cylinder. To drill the hole for this I made a jig. I drilled a hole through a block the same size as the side dowels. I then drilled a hole in the top of the block into the other hole, this is where the drill will go. Finally I tacked in a scrap piece of dowel into the hole so that when the dowel I am drilling is fully inserted the hole if the top is in the exact location I need the hole in the part.

The jig made it easy to drill these holes accurately.

To drill the holes in the large cylinder I went back to the jig I made to hold the part while I was making the knurling.

Here are the fully assembled parts. The ends of the side dowels need to be angled so I did this using a small belt sander after they were assembled. This guaranteed that the angle was the same on both dowels on each part.

Under Shoulder Detail Part 2

The part of the shoulder detail is the smaller cylinder. Due to it’s size I decided to make more then one at a time.I started with a dowel of the correct finished diameter and marked of where the cuts need to be made for each part.

I mounted this in the lathe and marked the lines all the way around.

I used the lathe to cut the low areas on the end of each part. The raised area will become knurling.

Once the lathe work was done I cut the pieces to their finished length.

To make the knurling I used the same technique as the large cylinder. I drilled a hole through the part so I could mount it on this jig to make the grooves.

Here is the part with the knurling complete.

Under Shoulder Details Part 1

The next part I am going to show is the under shoulder detail.

To make the main part I started by cutting a dowel into pieces of the correct length.

To create the knurling on the part I started by making a paper template with lines for where each groove will be. I wrapped this template around the part and glued it on using spray adhesive.

To hold the part while I was working on it I took a block of wood and drilled a hole in it the same size as the dowel, then I cut the end of the block in half exposing the button of the hold .

To make the grooves I started with an X-Acto knife and the opened up the cuts some more with a needle file.

These parts have a groove around them on either end. To make this I went back to my mini-lathe.  I wrapped electrical tape around the end of the part to prevent the jaws from damaging the part.

Finally I drilled the holes that will hold the side dowels. I went back to my jig to hold the part and drilled in on the drill press.

Foot Half Moon Details

On the side of the feet is the half moon foot detail. 

 I started by cutting paper templates from the styrene plans. The middle element has some smaller pieces that I didn't do templates for but just hand cut. I used these templates to cut the styrene parts.

To make the half moon I wrapped the outer part around the half circle element and glued it in place. You need to be sure you have it carefully aligned so that both ends end up in the correct location. Next I cut and glued in the triangular ribs to strengthen the part. 

The middle element is made of three parts. The front part with the two slots at the top, two thin triangles that form the sides and finally a small strip to close up the bottom. I glues up these parts and sanded them smooth and the glues the finish assembly to the half moon.

Since the side of the foot was skinned in styrene I could use styrene cement to glue on the detail. I used a couple clamps to hold it in place to dry. In this picture you can also see the three other details on the side of the foot. These were cut from styrene using templates made from the plans and glued in place with styrene cement. 

Ankle Cylinder Holders

The final part of the ankle is the Ankle Cylinder Holder. This is a crescent shaped piece right below the cylinder.

To make the part I started with a template made from the plans and then traced that on a piece of 3/4” MDF. I rough cut the curve on the bandsaw and then finished it on the drum sander. The shape the template provided wasn’t a perfect fit for my ankle so I needed to do a little more sanding to get the size and shape right. On the flat side of the part is a cove that the cylinder fits into. To make this I started by removing some of the material on the table saw. I set the rip fence so that the blade will be right in the middle of the part, and set the blade to the maximum depth of the cove. After making that cut I moved the fence over one blade width and lowered the blade and made another cut on each side of the first cut. To remove the rest of the material I wrapped sandpaper around a piece of the same pipe I used for the cylinder and sanded the cove to it’s final shape.

I believe I did the crescent cut first, but in hindsight it would probably be easier to make the cove first and the cut the crescent shape.

To attach the part I used dowel pins just like I did on other ankle parts. I used the same method as the cylinders to mark the location of the dowels on the ankle, putting some paint on the end of the dowels and using that to mark the ankle.

One of the problems with writing these blog posts so long after the work was actually done is that I have forgotten some things. I found this picture and wasn’t completely sure what I was doing here. These pieces are made from plywood, but the actual pieces I ended up using are from MDF. These are nailed together in pairs. I think I did this so that I could sand two at a time and get perfect matches. These were probably a first attempt at the part that I discarded.

Ankle Cylinder Mounting

For most of the leg parts I used dowels to mount them to the leg. This allowed me to temporarily assemble the legs without having to glue things on. I will eventually glue the parts on and the pins will help align the parts and give the connection some more strength.

To mount the cylinder I started with an MDF block that fit tight into the back opening. Before attaching the block I drilled two holes for the pins. The exact location of the pins isn’t critical since I have an easy way to transfer the location to the leg. With the holes drilled I used epoxy to glue the block into the cylinder.

To transfer the location of the pins to the leg I put temporary dowels into the holes that were just long enough to stick out beyond the block. Next I put a generous drop of black model paint on the end of each dowel and before the paint dried, put the cylinder in position on the leg and then pushed it down to transfer the paint to the leg. This will leave marks where I drilled the holes. Finally I replaced the short temporary dowel with the full length ones.