Building the Rail

Ian and I want to begin assembling the loom Wednesday. Before this can happen, however, the moving wall and rail needed to be completed. The magnets arrived a few days ago. Too much wood from the engineering room had been used for the first two walls, so we went to Home Depot to buy a sheet of plywood for the moving wall and planks of wood for the rail system. Some other miscellaneous materials were also bought such as super glue and L-brackets. Using the engineering room on Monday and Tuesday, I was able to complete building these items. They were taken home tonight and will be brought to the church tomorrow evening.

The moving wall was created almost exactly like the stationary back wall. The only major difference was that the wood bought was half the thickness to save weight and there were no legs. This did mean that there had to be a reinforcement beam at the top and bottom of the wall. It was still built 3' x 4'. When connected to the loom, wherever there is a hole on this wall will be a gap on the stationary wall. This does not affect the building process because both walls are symmetrical. As for the rail system, six long planks of wood were cut to 76". Each piece is 1.5" wide and 0.5" thick. Three of these planks were stacked on top of each other, and the middle plank was pushed out 0.75". Hot glue made a temporary bond between the three pieces, and five nails were put through the section where all three pieces overlapped. Because of the length of the planks, the pieces were originally very warped. Clamps had to be used to hold them in place during the gluing and nailing process. The warped pieces were put together in opposite directions so that the final rail was not warped as well. Two rails were made with the six planks of wood.

Cut Moving Wall

Moving Wall In Rail