Dibbler body completed
Another (couple of) evening(s), a bit more progress. I’ll do my best to blab as much as possible so that I don’t run out of pictures to blab to.
OK so before I got to the point at left, I got a can of clear coat spray paint to give the pine a bit more protection than…nothing. So it looks like plain old pine, but will hopefully not rot right away.
Once I did that I attached all of the 2″ l-brackets to the wood at the pre-marked places. I used 3/4″ wood screws.
Next step was to cut all of that PVC. Per the instructions I found out yonder on the interwebs, I cut a bunch of 4″ sections and then tried to cut the angles. After a few exploded pieces (always wear safety glasses…seriously) I finally figured out that it wasn’t happening. I sucked it up and bought another 5′ section of 2″ PVC. This time I made a mark of the fence of my miter saw and alternated between 45º and 90º cuts. Once I had all 24 pieces of PVC, I set about marking them for drilling by setting them on on an L-bracket and marking it with a pencil.
Once I had them all drilled, I attached them with 1″ 8-32 machine screws a locknut and a nut. In retrospect, I could have gone with a 1/2″ machine screw.
One more note about those screws. The original instructions call for 1/4″ screws. Their 2″ brackets must have larger holes because the 1/4″ ones didn’t even come close to fitting. When you do this, just keep track of your hardware receipts. You may find that you need to make an extra trip to bring a bunch of it back.
I attached all of the dibbler points. I then slipped the T over the nipples that go into the flanges on the ends of the plywood. The next step with these T’s will be to build the handle on them.
Beyond the T’s are 5 pound weights and then an endcap.
I’m finding that a 6″ nipple may be overkill and 5″ would have done fine. I think it’s, in part due to the fact that the weights illustrated in the original article are much wider.
In any case….ta-da! Here it is. It looks to me like some space buoy from a third rate sci-fi flick. I can’t wait to try it out.
Next update will be the handle and also a revised parts list and rough cost assuming I can find all of the receipts.
Good morrow…..Paul