April 28, 2019 Weekly Blog

Over this past week, we have been welding the last few pieces of unistrut that would support the wheels that the rails would roll along. We spent a good amount of time grinding down the welds and trying to make things look as presentable as possible and to smooth the surface out so the rotating shaft can slide along the supports. Upon completion of the welds and the grinding, we completed the assembly of the rail bender. Everything was working as planned until we tested it on one of our rails. Although the rail turned out as we had liked, the processing of bending it wasn't as we had hoped. The wheels would tilt upwards so the rail would begin to have a small spiral and the sliding base would begin to life, causing the threaded rods to bend. We determined that this was all due to the bottle jack not applying its force on the sliding base equidistant from the to threaded rods resulting in a moment. We will spend this week trying to figure out the best approach for a solution to this. Once this is resolved, we can continue with the rail bending and the drilling of the holes. We will also begin to make a quick drawing for the entry and exit sections of our track so they can be cut out of our aluminum sheets.

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