Keep on Keepin On

One week's hard work cutting, milling, and welding down, and all of the flat work on the deck is done. This week the girders go 3D and maybe we'll start in on the absurdity that is our piers. It's looking like we'll be in really good shape when the connections arrive.

Pictures!!!

The steel has arrived! Roughly 900 feet of cold steel tubing warms my heart.

Craig explains to Patrick that there are 3 ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the SteelRoo way (usually involves burning something).

Why not use 2 people to do one job?


Hard at work, you'll notice that there is light and no one's breath is showing. Yay new shop!

Connection testing. Notice the high tech dial gauge. Go Roos!

Fabrication Station

The last week has been very busy, but very productive as well. We got fabrication started off on Saturday, and made some excellent progress. The new shop is working out great, and all of the new tools really improve our precision and our production. We got most of the steel cut for the girders and are in the process of welding together the girder sections. We've had a few learning experiences already, including chewing the teeth off of a band saw blade and builiding a jig that wouldn't release the piece after it was fabricated. But all in all, I couldn't be more pleased with our progress so far (unless we had the connections). We also had a successful test of our connection design on Friday. Now if we could just start practicing our run through...

Get Crackin'

After a bit of a December lull (waiting on connections, material, and general slacking) we're all ready to start burning some steel. The new shop is completely set to go, lots of new tools and creature comforts (no more sub-freezing fabrication sessions), not to mention some much needed safety equipment. The material is all in, the connections are in process, the complex deck jig is built and tested, pretty much everything is set to go non-stop 24 hours a day until we're finished, kidding but only a little.

We'll be working hard, just 11 weeks until Regionals and as always we want at least a month of practice (so glad we're not a Texas school). Still on the lookout for an indoor practice facility so we can avoid any cold March mornings, the way this year is going they'd probably be in the snow.