First Frame

 

TLDR: 

 

Frame E is finished! Lessons learned:

 

·      the little digital angle gizmo is very useful

·      don't forget to check the measurements everywhere you can

·      thickened epoxy can make a mess

·      don't make your countersinks very deep

·      that oscillating tool cuts away screw protrusions and hardened epoxy

·      when gluing and screwing two wood frame pieces together, clamp before doing your final screwing

·      following John Blinky's advice (hulls #99 and 100), I routed the inside edges...after watching a woodworking youtube on how to use a router. 

 

 

Long version:

 

I chose Frame E as the first frame as it is the smallest. I first coated all the parts of all the frames with West System epoxy as a base coat. It is summer in Rhode Island and hot and humid. I have a dehumidifier running in the garage to keep the humidity reasonable, but wanted to get a coat of epoxy on all the frame parts to keep the wood from absorbing too much moisture. This got me used to mixing and working with epoxy. 

Here you can see the plans. The upright piece needs to be cut with the saw. Because there are so many pieces the first job is to make sure I have every part ready to assemble.

Here I have laid out the parts. The table is covered in plastic because epoxy doesn't bond to plastic. I later removed the full plastic layer and just covered sections as needed.

I laid out the frame, checked the upper angles with my digital angle finder, blocked the parts using those modesty blocks mentioned by others (Amazon of course). I drilled pilot holes and countersinks for the screws, dryfit with the screws, then took them apart, gave the areas that would be glued a scrubbing with a green 3M pad and a wipe with acetone. 

 

In this picture I am re-checking the angle after blocking everything.

 

Gathering my nerve, I mixed up some epoxy, gave both sides of the parts to be affixed a light coat of epoxy, then added colloidal silica to mayonnaise consistency, added it to one side, plopped the pieces down and screwed them on. 

 

Next day I had trouble loosening it. There was plastic underneath, so this confused me. Turned out the screws at 1 1/4" are a little too long unless the countersink is very shallow. Lesson learned! Dan Turk hull#20 ran into this issue and recommended using an oscillating tool to cut off the screw ends. I only got a few metal splinters through my gloves, so it was a success.

 

A couple of days later I added the back side pieces, same process. I put too much goop (I mean, thickened epoxy) and it oozed out ...I should have flipped it over right then and made that extra into nice fillets but hey, this was the first one and I didn't know better.

 

Overnight, I had a mild panic attack realizing I hadn't done the measurements of the diagonals to be sure everything was in sync. I came back to too much epoxy goo and thank heaven, my diagonals measured within a half a millimeter, maybe less but my eyesight has its limits.

 

I used my handy oscillating tool and cut away the excess epoxy and got busy making nice fillets.

 

The last piece was adding the second timber top piece. I did the pilot hole, glue and screw routine and when that was all together I noticed the screws had not pulled the two pieces flush together. Fortunately I noticed this right away, when everything was still wet. Also I didn't have sufficient ooze out of thickened epoxy (in my opinion anyway). This time I had taped off the sides so the epoxy wouldn't make a mess. I took it all apart and made up more goop. This time I positioned the two, put two screws in part way for positioning, and then put a whole lot of clamps on the pieces before screwing. Much better.

 

On to the next frame!