Project 2 Part 2: Preparing Structural Elements

The first part I decided to make was the wooden boards for the dock. I had ordered some wooden dowels of 1 inch diameter for the pilings (the poles) and I wanted to make sure the boards would look like they had the right scale compared to the pilings. To make the boards, I sawed balsa wood on the band saw. Since I wanted the dock to seem somewhat old and weathered, I wasn't too worried about making perfect cuts. Some inconsistent spacing between the boards was also fine, in fact it was better, because real docks warp over time. Looking back, it would've been interesting to add some manual warping to the boards.





I also started brainstorming how I could make the figure standing on top of the dock. Since I had ordered some aluminum wire with the intention of using it to make my crab pot,  I tried shaping a figure out of it. Additionally, I drew some sketches of how he should be standing based on reference images of people pulling heavy objects with ropes.




You can see that I haven't attached the boards yet, and instead made a smaller platform underneath where the boards would go. This platform will hold the top of the mechanism. 












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