Make a cassette
We had most of the bits cut to size the previous week - all we needed was the short sections of brass angle for the inner locators, which Stephen prepared. Geoff had cut and glued a pair of the longitudinal timber packers to the MDF base, so all we had to do was assemble everything.
We realised that to set the two running rails at the correct gauge, we needed two guides. Laurence first made two plywood rectangles, but decided to turn two round brass 'buttons' - a great idea.
It took a little while to decide what the critical issues were and the order of assembly, but we settled on assembling and fixing one whole side of a cassette - the 'business' side. Then we fixed the short running angle and its even smaller outer angle to the board edge, carefully aligning it in all directions, with the trail rail of the adjacent board.
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Once that was in place, we assembled and fitted the 'identical' unit for the fixed side of the junction.
This enabled us to fit the final running angle. This was only tacked as we were running out of time, but desperately wanted to see it working.
At first, we found the cassette very tight to insert and remove. We then noted score marks where the brass angle ran along the aluminium running angle. We persisted inserting/removing it for a while, and it eased a bit.
We decided that we would reduce the length of the brass angle on the fixed side, which we had made the same length as the removable side, just because it looked right! It really only needs to be about 10mm - the same 'engagement' as the movable section. We will also shape the edges of the brass angle a little more, all of which should do the job.
We haven't decided how to get power to the cassettes yet. We've seen at least three options - wiper blades in various forms, bulldog clips on the top of the side angle uprights, and an end feed, where a mini cassette unit, with wires attached, plugs onto the open end. This had the advantage of forming a stop-end which included a microswitch that cut the power completely, if struck.
All-in-all, we were extremely pleased with what we had created. We now need to decide what other cassettes we need to make, which depends on how we will store stock, and decide what sort of enclosure we would like.
