Techshop closes

Things are now at a dead stop. Techshop declared bankruptcy today and closed its doors. 

I should have been clear, in hind sight that this was going to happen - for the last few months the equipment hasn't been repaired or well maintained. The dust extraction was dismantled a few months ago and never replaced. 

It's not clear how I can proceed since the design depends on the precision cutting of the braces, frankly not very easy (and not intended to be done) by hand.

That's half the $1,000 membership down the drain. By the time I'm finished I could have bought a pair of speakers for less.

 

Second iteration for the matrix bracing

Each horizontal brace is now made from two sheets of 1/4 inch ply. The slots for the vertical spacers are cut completely through so that each spacer sits directly on top of the one below. This idea is to make sure that the drawing's dimensions are absolutely adhered to and don't depend on the thickness of the plywood which is quite variable.  Moving to this two layer brace sandwich also afforded the opportunity to add additional vertical spacers at the front.
 



The spacers are rather 'bendy' when the vertical axis lies across the grain, but stiffer when it is with the grain. Although the spacers are not load-bearing, I think for the remaining cuts I will ensure that they are all vertical.

This build is turning out to be much more complicated and time-consuming than the Phase-IVs. Partly that's a function of getting to grips with the Shopbot, and one false start, but Phase-IVs had very little assembly. These by contrast have orders of magnitude more; and I'm not even close to starting on the cabinet walls yet. 

Matrix-like interior bracing

The matrix-like interior bracing takes shape. Only as I was assembling it did I realize who I could have built this in half the cutting time. Dam!