Blog Post Eight: Just Trust Me on This.

Hey y’all, and welcome back to your favorite blog series. Let’s get into the updates.

I’ve started construction and cutting, as referenced by the photos in this drive. I’m using a drive because the blog post system is very unfriendly to Google Pixel photos. 

As you can see, the photos are of the first half of the construction, which includes the hole-carriers written by Vitruvius and the supporting beams. The engineering dimensions are one of the pieces I had the most trouble with. 

In his descriptions, he makes the frame much thicker than what I am making. This is most likely because his devices are much bigger, and require more support for the tension and torsion of the coils. For the sake of my own sanity in buying materials and cutting them down to size, I chose to downscale some dimensions, making the overall frame thinner than specified, but still around the same size with respect to the arrows. 

Not pictured here [I forgot to take pictures] is the recent work I did on attaching the different components. Because I chose to use thinner materials, it means that the choice of jointing (mortise and tenons) had to be swapped for a more modern solution of angle brackets on most of the corners. Mortise and tenon joints, for the non-woodworkers reading, are an extrusion and intrusion (peg and hole) that joins two pieces. Because the wood is thinner at the joint areas, cutting a true joint would be too difficult and unstable for this project. If I were in the ancient times, it would be easier because of the use of thicker wood stumps and carpentry experience higher than using a circular saw. 

A little Latin Nerd out moment if you will: mortise and tenon joints are often described as male and female connectors, which is also common in electronics terminology. What I found very interesting is that the word describing this joints, at least according to the OLD, Cardo, cardines, actually has two genders. Based on which one it falls under, it specifies the type of joint. I just found that similarity very cool. 

Now, if you’re getting your pitchforks on how brackets seem too weird and modern for this project (but not power tools and drills for some reason), I will tell you that Vitruvius also uses brackets and similar mechanisms on the outer walls of his Scorpio. 

I already have leftover wood to start developing the slide and casing, and will work on procuring the main engine for the weapon soon. The arms are the long wooden pole from last week, cut to the length necessary. We are nearing the end of Phase 1 of the Project. 

Progress is slower than I optimistically anticipated, but we’ll make it work. 

Signing Off,

Aadrit T.