Monday, August 6, 2012

Back to the basics

There has been a recurring statement that keeps popping up and I think most people might have had the same thoughts at one time or another.

"If we were only back home at the shop this would be a breeze!"

Still, we somehow manage to figure out how to get things done. Today's project was how to mount the high output aux alternator. We hashed this over for a while and found several non-ideal places where it would almost work but in the end found one great one. The problem was that it was where the normal one was mounted. Since we need to use both we also had to find a new home for the outcast one too(it's complicated). Since it was smaller we found a suitable location for it too. A tape measure and a few scribbles on a pad later I was up making a wooden mockup.

We have the tools and materials for wood crafting here- No problem. Richard finds a wooden example presented to a fab guy is much better than any amount of scribbles on a page. We also have the ability to set it into place to make sure it will work how we want it to before someone goes to all the time making the real thing. Rapid Prototyping is being used quite a bit in industry.

It's amazing what can be done with a few basic tools and scraps of wood scrounged from the dumpster. Sure, it would have been easier with all the proper tools back home, but the view wouldn't be near as nice. I did make quite a mess on deck tho.

Off to the steel fab guy tomorrow.

1 comment:

flyingvan said...

I'm kind of admiring the block of wood it's sitting on