PROGRESS

Finally I have started to make my final product and it's fair to say that it's going to take a while. The material that I'm using to make the camera is high density engineering foam which has roughly the same density as MDF. Due to needing to shell this material out for my components to fit inside I have to do this on the milling machine. This is a slow process because the accuracy has to be just right and precision is key.

I started off with making the general box and this was cut with a clearance of 1~2 mm. The curves were then created on the router which was done before the block was cut into two parts, allowing the curves to flow evenly and accurately.

Then I had to cut the block into 2 equal parts so that I could start shelling out the inside. This was done on the band saw but I had to take into consideration the thickness of the saw blade. I tested this out on an offcut of MDF so that I could measure where the cut should be, leaving two equal parts.The next step was to level off both the edges on the inside so that both were even and then I could start milling out the edging where the lip is situated. The lip will allow the parts to fit snuggly together rather than making a butt joint which wouldn't look as professional. The part will also be screwed together.

When this was done I marked out the detailing on the edge where the USB cable is housed and then it was back to the milling machine. This detailing needed to be extremely precise because a case has to be made to cover this and all this part is exposed which is why I want it as neat as possible.

Due to the off cuts from the part being milled, this was often in the way of what I was doing so I felt it was neccesery to do this stage in sets of 3mm. The complete depth of the hole was 18mm so this wasn't too difficult, it just took a while.

Next, the hole on the top of the camera where the conical feature is situated was drilled out. For this I had to test out the diameter and depth of the circular drill pieces that were available before attempting this on my model.

After this I marked out where the shelling would occur on the inside of this half and then got started on it. I never managed to complete this task because the workshop shut, but this is where I will start next week!!