Squares and prayers Bill, just squares and prayers 
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This meets the exacting standards of 1:24-ish PLAYMOBIL scale at any distance!
Eric
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You really need to improve that a bit and knock it down to 3.0475
DangI guess I’m going to have to add more detail .
That’s fine Bill but if you go beyond 3.08 metres then you are breaking your own rules from the way I read it?
Now if you prefer to model in 3 Apples that is a whole different scale however a viable one.
Oops…
Yep — more like a bloke documenting the build as it happens, with the occasional admission that there was a plan and reality had a disagreement with the plan.
We now rejoin MEASURE ONCE, POUND TO FIT now in progress…
This was supposed to line up with the midline of the hopper.
It didn’t.
I’m not entirely sure how I managed to get that wrong, but there it is. I could probably come up with some complicated explanation involving scale, perspective, timber movement and the phase of the moon, but the truth is I just put it in the wrong bloody place.
The good news is that it actually made fitting the hopper easier.
There were fewer fussy little cuts to make, which means I can now claim that this was deliberate.
That’s the beauty of scratch building. If you make a mistake and nobody notices, it’s a design feature.
And then came the walls…
The next challenge was deciding what to make the walls out of.
I had some Tasmanian Oak, also known as Victorian Ash, in the stash. It’s quite dense timber, with a Janka hardness rating of about 5.7 kN, which puts it somewhere around Red Oak in terms of workability.
Which sounds reassuring until you actually try to work the stuff.
It was surprisingly bloody hard to fit.
The 80-grit disc sander was particularly unimpressed with my choice of timber. Even with new sandpaper, I managed to generate about as much smoke as sawdust.
There comes a point when you stop wondering whether you’re sanding the timber and start wondering whether you’re actually setting fire to it. On the other hand, it might be great for smoking a brisket… That could delay the project. Costco sells brisket.
Eventually, after a fair bit of sanding, swearing and test fitting, I got the walls where they needed to be.
I also installed a window adapted from BD’s Windows on Thingiverse.
One small detail, but it starts to make the thing look considerably less like a pile of timber, at 3.0475 meters, Rooster.
Next up was the gable.
More Tassie Oak.
Because apparently I hadn’t suffered enough with the first lot.
Having said that, the grain in this stuff is bloody lovely.
Once it’s sanded and cleaned up, it really does make a nice bit of timber for this sort of thing.
So, despite the smoke, the swearing and the fact that the post is still not where I originally intended it to be…
I’m calling it progress.
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Had to look this up as I was not familiar but always enjoy learning these things. They are both from the Eucalyptus family and quite hard as you stated. Considering the hardness factor making models with this can be difficult. The grain is very nice though as stated so no wonder it’s commonly used for flooring there.
150yrs ago a Koala bear on a branch may have said: This is the finest piece of Victorian Ash I have ever mounted.
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I loved the news break, Bill!
Your model is looking excellent, keep up the great work!
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As the late, great Bart Salmons once said to me: “Ya know Jon, if you hadn’t pointed it out, no one would have ever noticed” !!!
Looking good so far!
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Bill. That’s brilliant. I always took the TB3 out of the bottle. Didn’t realize I had been doing it wrong all these years. 
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You don’t know how close you are to being on the mark Boomer. I’m about to try to strain the liquid from the solids in this bottle and see how much will remain a paper weight.
Yep. With what I just paid for a tiny bottle of Titebond III, I would be trying to salvage as much as possible. Be sure to test any you salvage before trusting it.
Bill,
I already told you what I thought 2 weeks ago. Honestly with my outdoor modeling limited experience the glue joints will be the least of your concerns in a few years.
The problem with being new to scratch-building isn’t figuring out what is not working, but figuring out why something is not working.
When placed on the poppet head frames the gables looked too grandiose and I thought I should trim them back to lessen the effect. But how does one safely trim a little piece of wood off another little piece of wood, with a big saw blade, and do it accurately?
Before attempting the cut I had a few practice runs pushing the gable towards the stopped blade. Due to its shape, the triangular gable kept slipping sideways when I attempted to hold it firmly against the mitre, so I pin-nailed a support on to the block to use as a grip, thus ensuring my hands were kept well away from the blade, and the pressure to hold it did not vector the block sideways.
Can I just say… a pin nailer is a game changer!?
The resulting fit looked much better to my eye.
When I started to repurpose a door that was salvaged from our old house, I discovered that it was made from Oregon.
And I’ve learnt something while building this: what we Australians call Oregon is known in North America as Douglas fir. And, rather ironically, much of the Oregon we imported came not from Oregon, but from British Columbia. Apparently we’ve been renaming things on a whim for quite some time. Although, in our defence, we haven’t renamed any lakes.
In any event, It seemed a shame not to give the timber another life. The next step was to use the table saw to turn the door into usable blocks.
I then re-sawed the blocks into book-matched panels with the bandsaw.
Then I taped them together on edge to see how it looked as a roof.
Back at the bench, I needed to decide what roofing would look most appropriate. I had two choices.
I tried the cedar shingles, but the corrugated tin sheets purchased from Temu looked better, so they were the winner. I just wish they were bigger.
E6000 was used to secure the sheets to the roof.
I found that I could also get 0.6 to 1.2 mm 90° aluminium angles from different TEMU suppliers. It’s the sort of material normally used to protect the corners of things such as cabinetry, but it has made a useful ridge cap for the roof.
I think the roofline looks satisfactory.
Temu has some quality doodads at amazing prices, and stuff you can’t find anywhere else. It’s been a welcome relief to find things that hobby shops used to carry… when there used to be hobby shops. I hope the costs remain reasonable as more people find out about Temu.
Onward….
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First off get rid of the blade guard as it’s a safety issue with that size material. Secondly you need a zero clearance throat. Thirdly I wouldn’t even trim that on the table saw I would do it on a chop saw with a zero throat and a 12" blade brightly painted.
Why the big blade …“so I can see it clearly” the little blades will wreck your fingers just as fast as a big one and most are not painted so you cannot see the working area of the blade. The argument on that is the larger blades are wider and take more material.
Remember you are building a structure with the 3.0475 metre rule in mind and YOU WILL see if the structure is not plumb, level and square not the piece that you shaved an ass hair off of.
ONLY my thoughts.
BTW …I have a 1/2 turn stair case in my home made of entirely old growth fir and it is a beautiful “vintage” wood.
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Bill,
For cutting small pieces like that either build a sled or use a sacrificial block on your miter gauge fence.
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Rick, what is the advantage of a sled?
Comparing the speed of this build might be associated with watching paint dry. But I want to assure everyone that the painting involved with this build is not in this section.
I disassembled the pallet that my jointer came with and used the planks to practice and see how the jointer works. There is something strangely satisfying about taking a piece of rubbish timber that was destined to carry things around and making it useful.
Once happy with the planed edges, I glued the two boards together with surprisingly good results. The Titebond 3 appears to be OK, though it is coming out somewhat lumpy. I’m choosing to interpret the lumps as evidence of glue that wants to get the job done instead of glue in need of a priest.
I’m amazed at some of the beautiful grain patterns I’m getting here. Considering where this wood started, it is turning out rather nicely.
I should have considered saving one of these pieces for a TARDIS. There is something about this pallet wood that seems particularly appropriate for a machine that travels through time, dimensions and, occasionally, questionable woodworking decisions. Of course having a TARDIS, we might be tempted to skip the paint section of this build completely.
At this point you may be wondering what all this carefully prepared pallet wood is actually for.
So am I…
WARNING GHA AHEAD @Deneh Now it’s time for the hand chisels.
OK.
This is the point where I remind myself that measuring and marking things accurately is important.
So far…
Things are looking promising.
So good…
Still promising.
This is usually the dangerous part of a project, because once things start looking good you become confident enough to make the next cut.
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Measure twice…
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Cut once…
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Pound to fit!
And there we have it. A perfectly measured, carefully chiselled piece of pallet wood, persuaded into position using the traditional woodworking technique known as “beginners luck.”
Now before we get back to the 3D printer, we should chat about how difficult it is to choose paint these days?
Here is a preview up what’s up next…
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Excellent job on the cage, Bill!
And your colors crack me up.