Attraction Department: A Weekend of Work

We did a lot of work over the weekend and ran into some interesting problems and challenges. In the photo above you can see that we need to add our little bamboo decorations along the flume.

Here you can see we have started the work, while a pile of "bamboo" waits its turn to be added to the trough.

Now we have all of the bamboo and the legs inserted and cemented in. It's time to flip it over and add it to the base.

And there it is, both parts of the track put together. Notice the clear hose coming out of the ends of the troughs. I had to tear out the nozzle box at the end of the flume that the hose fits into 4 times before finally getting it right.

 

Time for more decorations. You can see what we are building at the left and the pieces it requires on the right. Currently, 12 of these must be made.

 

 

And they are all finished.......over 2 hours later! These were very time consuming.

 

 

Now we get into the tricky part....gears and belts. Here are some of the gears and rods that will go into the two upramps.

 

 

 

This was a nightmare. Getting the belt over the gears and putting a piece on top without knocking the gears out of their holes was not easy. And you can't use any glue. It took me quite some time to figure out the best way to do this. And you get to do it twice!

 

 

Then, once you get them together you find you can't get the belt to turn. It took a while to find just the right combination of turns on the screws that hold the ramp sides together before I could get the belts to loosen up. Now I have to keep my fingers crossed that they are loose enough for the motors to turn them.

We were pretty excited with the work we were able to do this weekend and have the four power supplies that will be needed on order now.