OK, had a session doing the first 6 parts of this project. Took a couple of hours in all, but some of that time was sorting out pictures and finding tools, although a little forward reading would have helped there. The
gallery of images has been uploaded, and that in itself was helped by some development work in the new Plasma6 desktop. I actually updated the exif data on the pictures to include the proper image title rather than 'SONY DSC' which used to be used as the image text. My AI assistant actually proved useful!
Need to do a little work to get a strip of images showing on the page for the 6 magazines and their parts.
(Need to dig out my notes on Bootstrap3 and it's div setup ... silly me, just look on another site as a reminder) The main thing about the
bitweaver framework is that it's designed to display content on various sizes of screens, but it needs a little help placing images in a suitable layout. The six pictures below will be stacked one on top of another on a mobile phone ...
Build1 went without any problem, and the eyeball resulted, but Build2 needed a small screwdriver to open up the battery box. Now had I read ahead I would have spotted that part set includes one, but I've a large stock so just grabbed a couple from the rack. The problem with cross-head screwdrivers is that it's not just the size, it's also the angle of the point and my stock screwdrivers are a little steeper than that of the one supplied in part 3. So getting the screw out was little tricky. That said, even the 'official' one is still not a perfect fit for the supplied screws. At some point I will dig out the other jewellers screwdrivers and see if I have a better fit.
Moving on two the first big part, the mouldings here are very clean, but I was struggling with the fourth of a set of holes when I realised that it was smaller than the other three. A scan over the moulding produced a couple more that had not been cleared right through and needed opening a little to let the screws in. Since these screws were going into pre-tapped holes in the metal parts, it is important to get the screws alighted before screwing them, but I still ended up using the spare screw after one cross threaded a bit and I damaged the head of one. Another reason for ensuring that the driver fits the screw properly. There are several size of screws as well which adds to the fun, but these are well identified, and I'm building up a little stock of spares so replacing one where the head has been damaged is not a problem, and well worth doing to ensure a tight fit.
I do question the value of parts included in some magazines! Part 4 includes all the parts for a top light, while the second unit is only half complete after parts 5 and 6. Given the 60 odd half spheres on the lower body, will each come in it's own mag, so some 60 magazines worth? Hopefully not, but the Flying Scotsman series had some weeks that were very light on parts compared to others. That is another project I have yet to start despite having all but one set of parts in the series. I'm missing the tender body piece despite having the magazine. It was too big to fit in the box with the rest of the parts ... and has gone missing, without a means of replacing it. At least it's plastic, so fabricating something should not be too difficult.
Anyway after a couple of miss steps, all the parts are now together. Fitting the metal parts needs a little care and these should be neat with the edge of the plastic. A couple of times I had the threaded hole slightly offset from the mating one until I repositioned the part a second time. I also made a little mistake with the orientation of the part that lines up the tube of the eye, having it upside down. A better light would have helped with that and in future I'll have the magnifier to hand for that sort of fit. Now I just need somewhere safe to store the top for four weeks until the next tranche of mags arrive.
Having got the A3 printer and its document scanner sorted I will eventually scan all of the magzines so I don't need to keep even more paper in the flat. At least they can join the packaging in the recycling.
