Continuing the Rocket for the Orrery

It's finally stopped storming, so I can continue to work on building my rocketship today. Why does it matter if it's storming? Some of my equipment (lathe, drillpress among other stuff) is out on a covered deck. The covers keep them protected when it rains, but I'm not too good with my hands when it's cold and wet. I have very low blood pressure, so if my hands get cold, they don't work very well, and that's not something you want happening when you're working with a high speed drill press, or have a large gouge aiming at a huge piece of rapidly spinning wood on a lathe.

So when my hands start giving me trouble, I choose warmer, indoor work, which I certainly have enough of.

But I WANT to get this rocket done! And today is warm(er) and dry, so I'm going to take advantage of it!

You can see in the picture the carved rocket body next to a spare turning block in case I screwed up the first one (and it still isn't too late to do just that....). These pieces are 20 inches long and 4 1/2 inches wide and weigh about 10 pounds each. Pretty massive, really. I drilled the holes for the arms and weights into the top pieces before I turned it (cause once I turn it, I don't have a flat surface to go perpendicular to anymore). I also routed out the channels for the fins before I turned it. You can see the channels at the base of the rocket. There will be 4 fins that I am going to start carving today. Oh, and I'll also sand the top of the rocket to a nice cone.

The rocket and the fins are carved from solid Cherry, a hard and beautiful wood. One of my favorites to work. Once I get the fins carved and fit and make sure that the rocket stands like it's supposed to, I'll start doing more tooling to the rocket body itself, but that's for another post. One thing at a time!

Peace,
Joy

A Rocket is Born!

I got the rocket carved for the Orrery that we're making!!!! Yay!!! It was cold though, but not raining. You can see me all bundled up. I actually have three shirts on and two pairs of sweatpants, and gloves. I'm coated with sawdust, as is everything else. It gets in my hair, up my nose and under my contacts, but it's actually a lot of fun to get so messy and see something come out of nothing.

The section I'm working on is the top of the rocket. The wide section to my right is the part where the fins will come out. I haven't carved them yet. The dark lines that I'm cutting in the photo is the separations of the sections. I carved the smooth shape of the rocket first and then put in the marking of where the rocket will be cut into 10 pieces.

Why cut it? There's the base piece - the fatter part that the fins will attach to, and then the very top cap which holds the rod to the Sun globe. The other eight pieces are for each of the planets. Each piece will have a rod coming out of it that goes out to hold the planet. You can see that in the website picture.

So after the rocket is carved and sanded, then it is cut into the pieces that can rotate on their own. I'll then take each one of the pieces and drill a hole in the center to hold the tube that goes down to the gearing. Complicated huh? Yes, it makes my brain tired if I think of too many sections of it at a time. I'll most likely start carving the fins tomorrow and figuring out the gearing system (yikes!).

If you like these, please become a follower here.

Peace,
Joy