Barndoor Construction photos

As promised here are some photos from the construction so far.

First thing I did was draw a line that was 11.43" long and an arc with a radius of 11.43" in Illustrator and printed it out on a regular piece of paper to use as a guide.

Arc template

I used a 14" round piece of particle board I had laying around to help bend 1/4-20 allthread.

The bending, I'm so good I was bending it with one hand

I had to use a rubber wheel on a cart in the garage to get the final radius, I could get close with the particle board round but it wasn't quite small enough to get all the way there.

Here I am checking against my template, I think I am just about there.

Attaching the hinge and drilling the holes for the radius arm

I kitbashed a pair of left over BEKVÄM shelfkits from IKEA to get the wood for my mount.

One of the gears prepped for JB-Weld (planB)

So the original plan was to just tap the gear, however when I got the gear, the inner diameter of the hole was as big as the allthread so my original idea wasn't going to work so it was time to implement plan B.  I was going to JB-Weld a nut to the gear.  I prepped the gear with a dremmel.

Nut Before

Nut After

I prepped the nut with the Dremmel as well in order to give the epoxy something to adhere to.

I used a spare bolt to hold the nut in place and keep it centered while the epoxy sets

I used JB-Weld quick curing epoxy to affix the nut to the gear.  I had to make an impromptu tap out of a spare bolt to clean out a little epoxy that oozed into the threads (did I mention that I love my dremmel?)

All hooked up and ready for the next step

Put it all together, ran the manufactured gear/nut up and down the full length of arc in order to make sure that there was no binding, I will coat the whole thing in white lithium grease to reduce friction.

Next steps will involve some soldering, adjusting of the wiring, putting the crown bolt in for the tripod shoe and then a switch and automatic disconnect to prevent the mount from running too long and binding/damaging the gear train.  The weather does not look to be cooperating this weekend so I don't think I will be able to do any field testing.