Leg Strut Part 2

In my last post I showed how I build section 3 and 4 of the leg strut, in this post I will show section 1 and 2.

I started out with a piece of 2x2 stock, cut down the width and height on the table saw and finally cut it to length. The circle on the finished piece is to indicate which face will eventually get the disk.

 

Next I need to drill a hole for the dowel shown in section 2. Here I have marked the location where the hole will go.

Since this has to be drilled and an angle I made up this jig to hold the piece while I drill it. I made the hole with a forstner bit.

Here is the block with the dowel. Not shown here, but I also drilled a small hole in the end of the dowel for a smaller dowel which will attach it to the rest of the assembly.

To make section 2 I decided to use a stack of alternating sized washers. I started by making a jig with is simply a small dowel in a piece of scrap. I then put down the first large washer, and then glued on a small one using super glue.,

I then repeated this process with two more large and two more small washers. I put on a stack of washers (not glued) to make up the rest of the height if the dowel and then clamped the whole thing until the glue dried.

Leg Strut Part 1

The next piece to work on is the leg strut. This is a much more complex part then the shoulder hydraulic I showed in the last couple posts, so I broke it down into 5 section as seen in the diagram. I will start with section 4.

For this piece I went back to the machine lathe. I started with a dowel that matches the largest diameter of the part. Using the measurements in the plans I marked out each segment.

I then machined each of the grooves in the part.

Here is the part with the lathe work complete. I still needs to be trimmed to length and cleaned up a bit.

Using a centering gauge I marked the center of each end.

I then drilled out each end for dowels that will be used to connect the sections together.

For piece 3, I cut the part from a dowel of the correct diameter and then used a file and some sanding to create the bevel on the edges.

I marked the center of the piece with the centering gauge and then mounted it in my dowel drill jig to drill a hole through the center.

Here are the two pieced complete.