Brief Description: bought a bandsaw for form block shaping
I am producing these form blocks in stages. Yesterday I used a circular saw to cut out pieces of MDF big enough to make each block, but not really shaped at all. Today I bought a band saw and used it for preliminary shaping of each block. I cut them (some of them, not all complete to this stage yet) close to the outlines in the plans, with just a bit of room around the edges for some extra material to compensate for any errors. I will use these blocks to trace onto the 0.040 aluminum sheet for cutting out the aluminum blanks. Then I will go back to the MDF blocks, and cut each one exactly to size and shape on the bend lines, removing the part that represents the flanges. Next I will use some kind of a rasp or router to round over the edge or edges for the radius of the flange bend. for some of these blocks I only need to round one edge because I am only making one part from it. But in other cases blocks are used for multiple editions of the same shape, with half the flanges bent right and the other half bent left. So this is going to take a few days.
This is the brand-new band saw.
cutting out one of the bulkhead form pieces
a small stack of form block cut near their final sizes and shapes
