November 19, 2007

Tonight's goal was to lay out the forward wing spar dimensions on the jig board. The first order of business is to have a long, straight, horizontal reference line. This time, I thought I would put my laser thingy to use. What's straighter than a laser, right? The trick was mounting the laser somewhere where it would project the line in the right place and visible across the entire board. I found a good spot to hang it at just the right angle and then waited for the thing to stop swinging. I could have figured out something to hold it more stationary, but this worked fine once it settled down. I just had to move really slowly when I was near it. Then I just used my long ruler to draw the line right down the center of the laser.

Then I used the measuring tape to locate the center and mark all the horizontal distances of the spar from that one reference point. I used the square to make perpendicular vertical lines at the marked horizontal distances. All of the other dimensions followed from that. Here's a couple shots of after all the layout has been drawn. The bottom wood with the tape on it has to be laminated to the correct curve before I do anything else, but the wood pieces above it will generally go where they are.

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