With the upper portion of the base ready to hold the center column, today’s focus was on getting a socket for the center column to rest in. To start, we created a set of cross beams.
Next, since the goal is to take this to events and the weather doesn’t always cooperate, we want to have all upward facing surfaces enclosed where possible. As such, we capped the sides of the base.
The corners still needed to be left open for the posts to slot into to form the legs. Next, we needed a hole for the disc on the bottom of the post to fall into. To ensure it was centered we snapped a chalked line stretched across the corners and aligned the corners of the receptacle along them.
With that, we were ready to test the central column. We put the legs in, the top on, tipped it over, slid the column in, and fit the collar over it.
There’s a little bit of give, but as mentioned in the last post, we’ll try to tighten that up with a little bit of PVC.
Overall, it’s coming right along. When assembled, this thing is quite imposing. Originally, the center post was intended to rest on boards on the bottom of the base, but since we changed that to the top of the base, it’s lifted about 6in higher than intended. And since the post is a little over 8ft already, it’s over 8.5ft.
But we’re getting very close. Major to dos include staining & sealing, painting, adding a scale, mounting the quadrant, hanging the plumb line, and adding the sight. Minor things are mostly making minor adjustments for fit to tighten the parts that rotate, and sanding the legs so they fit into the base better.
T minus 31 days.