Has anyone had a crack at the Legionaires' Fort in 3rd issue of the Toy magazine?
Good plans, Great project.
Had a little trouble starting untill I found an enlarger/photocopier guy that would simply enlarge the plans by one step 250% as to one by 200% then by 50%. Anyway I am on my 3rd attempt at construction.
1st effort I used 9mm ply that was "only a little bit warped" but found when assembling it was a total disaster. Moved on to 9mm MDF for the next 2 goes.
With the plans I glued, (door ways and windows) and used double sided sticky tape where required around edges to fix to MDF. Clamped MDF over edge of bench and cut out with jig saw using a B27 metal blade. Drilled 10mm holes to start windows and internal doors but found jig saw free hand excellent to cut arched external door ways.
To cut 113 pieces of 6mm dowel for beam supports I taped 4 lengths of 6mm dowel together with masking tape, Draped a large sheet around the docking saw and merrily cut off the prescribed number, then spent a few minutes collecting them from all round the shed.
When cutting out my 2nd effort I used the jig saw free hand but found I could have had more accuracy on the slots that go together in assembly.
To get over this problem I made a jig (after attending a Richard Vaughan seminar where he has a jig for everything I had to make a jig) for the jig saw to work in. This gave good straight sides to slots and even width. Not sure yet which is the best fit for these slots for if firm the bits have to be dead in line to assemble but stay together or a bit loose, easy to assemble but when trying to get that difficult piece in the thing falls apart.
1/4 inch drill too loose for dowel. 15/64 too tight .
Painting..... I hate painting..... Started to dab at it with a 25 mm brush and a tin of paint. Got bored and switched to spray gun. Still very difficult to cover the edge of MDF without runs on the face side. "Stain the 6 mm x 20 mm beams while the paint is drying" the plan said. What 113 of them. Placed a small quantity of Danish oil in a small container and rolled them around till they were all covered then put them on some mesh to dry. Disaster no.2. I had become attracted to the colour of MDF and thought it was quite pleasant in its natural form so inserted the floor beams. ( with a small mallet for they are pretty firm) which then squeezed out some of the oil which put nasty stains on the MDF. So remove beams, back to spray gun.
Don't you hate that fact that a resonable good woodwork skills can be dragged down to the very bottom with a bad finish!!!!!!!!!!!!
Made carry/storage case 500mm square x 110 high. This case when upside down can be used as a base to build the fort on.
Regards
Dick