The Pedal Gee Bee

Time Spent: 5 hours (est.)
Total Time: 14.25

I didn’t really keep good notes during this time. I was assembling and working my tail off to the point where writing about it afterward seems a chore. Pity, as I know that I (and maybe others) will want to look at these notes again in the future. I’ll summarize the higher points.

To round the edges of all the plywood parts by hand would take forever. I decided that the best route (no pun intended) would be to use my router table and a 3/16^th roundover bit. This doesn’t completely eliminate hand sanding, but takes it down to a couple of minutes per part to take off the rough spots. I rounded 95% of the parts in this manner and the results were satisfactory.

For the panel cover parts that require a 45-degree edge, I figured the router table was the way to go as well. It was a little bit more difficult than rounding the parts but it worked. To do it I put a 45 degree chamfer bit in the router table and adjusted the fence and so that the original outer edge of the piece is preserved. Then I adjusted the bit’s depth so that all but a very thin top layer is not chamfered out. Be careful here, as the parts you are chamfering are fairly small and the bit doesn’t distinguish between wood and finger.