Still Building

A week after my last post, I've finished four out of seven pieces of giant Soma cube, and am half-way through the fifth. The first four were all comparatively simple: because they are essentially flat shapes, I could attach most of the frame to the two large sides, then join it all together with simple rectangles. The fifth (piece P) is more complicated. There's no obvious order in which to put it together, and it needs screws at some less accessible angles.

 To cap it all, this piece is more likely than others to suffer odd tension forces, so I decided to put a long coach bolt through the central joint. Working out how to dril the hole for that accurately enough was a novel task.

Once I'd finished assembling piece P, I put cube X on it to get an idea of how the pieces will look when fitted together. I'm happy with the result. As you can see, the pieces are built slightly smaller than the ideal mathematical cubes that they represent, leaving a gap that is just large enough for the feet that will eventually be on every side.

After I've finished gluing piece P together, the next piece will be Q which is the mirror image of P. And then after that, only Y will be left. I've been timing my work with a stopwatch app, and I reckon there are about 20 hours of construction work left. So the basic construction should be complete by Thursday.