A bulk of day was spent making bands. Each hemisphere has a circular band around it and the body is two perpendicular bands, one horizontal and concentric with the bowls and another vertical one for the tray. To make these bands as accurate as possible I first rolled out the flat-bar into circles on a roll bender (thanks Joe!) to within 1/8″ of the modeled radius.

Here are some pictures I took while making the concentric band:

I only rolled out a length equal to 75% of the total circumference so I end up with a bunch of incomplete circles. I then laid out the proper radius on a work surface and clapped in a incomplete circle to divide it evenly in half:

Once I have two made they both get clamped in and I check to make sure they go together nicely:

While I was able to get some really great accuracy the numbers I was working from were from the CAD model which is a bit too perfect. The copper bowls are nearly perfect hemispheres and there was a very slight discrepancy so rather then go with the CAD numbers I tweaked the piece to fit the bowl and checked it from all angles.

Once I was satisfied with the way the semicirculars were laid out I clamped everything down even more and tacked them together. I’m not fully welding anything at this point in cause something needs to change.

Here you can see the final band that will be concentric with the bowls. I then started to make the vertical tray band. Again I start with the CAD numbers but then measured and cut to fit.

Next I started working on the inner tray band which the gears will mount in. I started with a slice of 3″ OD pipe cut and ground to be 1″ thick. This piece needed three 9/16″ holes at 90 degrees. In this first photo you can see the punch marks I laid out for the drilling. Then you can see the final piece.

Here is that inner gear band with the copper rod in them.

Here you can see how the gears will fit in. It’s a nice snug fit.

Me in one of the copper bowls.