The Greek helped me with the Assembly Table

It didn’t rain until late afternoon and with that knowledge in the morning we drove 20km east to a tree nursery where Jan carefully examined their selection of fruit trees.  The plan is to be as self-sufficient as possible in the consumption of fruit.  Jan was particularly delighted when she noticed they had three Bramley Apple trees.  Unfortunately they were all too big to fit in the back of the 4x4 which means we will have to borrow a trailer to collect it.  Actually we’ll probably take the opportunity to purchase a few more trees whilst there.

After lunch I worked on the woodwork assembly table completing the framing by mid afternoon.

Frame on its back with the Aldi casters fitted.  I’m fitting the last of the horizontal framing for the drawer slides.

Upright with the front towards the camera.  Eventually there will be nine drawers in the front.  At the rear will be a long compartment to store timber offcuts.

I bought some cheap(ish) construction plywood for the top.  The 2400-1200 sheet needed to cut down to 1800x900 which meant the Makita plunge saw and guide rail system got used for the first time.  The plunge saw did an excellent job.

I’m using the ‘Parf’ CNC measuring tools and template system to create a perfect grid on the worktop.  The steel rulers have 3mm holes at 100mm spacing.  After creating a baseline of holes I had that Greek fellow assist me with getting the matrix exactly square.  (the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides).  Yes, Pythagoras and his 3 – 4 – 5 Triangle

Having drilled the holes on three sides of the square I double checked the sides to ensure they were square.

Then I drilled all the intermediate holes before repeating the process at the other end of the worktop.

Once all the pilot holes had been drilled I used the drill to start making the holes larger using the supplied template.

After drilling the first five holes I realised some fine oil to lubricate the flange in the template block might be a good idea.  We don’t have any which meant I needed to stop work before damaging the flange.

With some daylight left I cleaned down the body of one of the free-wheeling hubs and gave it two coats of silver paint which will hopefully match the paint on the 4x4.

I’ll need to get some bearing grease before I reassemble the first hub.  Notice how I optimistically state I will reassemble it.