Well now that day 2 of cutting is over I guess I should update. I got all of my large parts cut. Now I just need to finish cutting all the small parts tomorrow and likely get the router fired up and get some holes cut for the bracing parts.
Ran into a few snags so far. Nothing too catastrophic. Although I am a bit of a perfectionist so good luck convincing me the world hadn't ended. First. The factory edge on this MDF is less than spectacular so I have been cutting it off. This adds time since I need to square everything up. And... two of the sheets the darned things weren't even square from the factory to begin with.
Never ran into that issue before using sheet goods.
The worst panel by the time I got it squared up the rip piece I took off was about 1/2 inch thick on one end and 3/16 or a 1/4 on the other. Terrible. Luckily they come oversized and I have some room to play with.
Its been slow going because for every cut I measure.... measure again.... set my guide.. measure again.. check for square. turn on the shop vac.. cut.. suck up all the dust. Unclamp the guide. Make sure I didnt screw up the cut by measuring and checking for square again. THEN move onto the next cut. All on my hands and knees on the floor.
I have multiple measuring tools but decided to just stick with the good ole' tape measure. Bad thing about a tape is that if you are going for accuracy you can't just hook on and go because I have yet to use a tape measure that is accurate this way. There is always some slop in the end. Have to hold one inch over (or how ever many you want) Then be sure to add on the other end. Lots to remember. And since I am using a guide I also have to subtract the distance from the guide to the sawblade. Hence... Lots of double checking.
Using a cutting guide from home depot. Nothing special but it gets the job done. its two pieces so even when its joined together if you really want it to be straight you still need to hold the middle from moving.
Here's where the world all went to hell in a hand-basket. On first glace you would think I free handed this with a little "sidewinder" Nope. First time it happened I thought what the heck. Maybe I was just focusing too much on keeping the vac hose in the right place I wasn't watching the guide. Then after the 3rd time I figured out its because the saw blade was getting hot by the time I would get halfway down the sheet and started walking all over the place. When I started this was a high end finish blade that I had only used a couple times but yes if you are wondering MDF does eat through your cutting tools. Notice the first half of the cut is fine.
Probably doesn't help the blade I am using is only a 1/16" kerf. Short cuts its fine. Luckily because of the way my sheets are laid out I was cutting off that bad part anyway but i do have at least one piece that is a little less than perfect. Though not as bad as the pic. This was the last sheet so it was worse by then.
All of the big panels cut. Since I had to re-design for the whole port volume snafu I have a sheet of 3/4 I won't need but actually its worth the 37 bucks to have a relatively flat work surface. So it turned out pretty well!
Just for kicks i sort of put one together to get an idea of the what I was building. These things are going to dwarf my Kappa's I had. The cabinet is HUGE!
That's all for today. Hopefully before the weekend is out I will have the port assemblies glue up and assembled and some of the bracing assembly glued and by next weekend maybe it will start to look like something!
