Foot drives - wheels housing (pt 1)

Long time coming for this post...

Back in May, I went to work on building the foot drives for my R2. I decided to go with the Senna Drive model because it seemed to be the best drive out there I could find. Over a few months I slowly purchased all the parts needed for the drive and after watching the DVD tutorial I had several times, I finally got up the courage to get down to business.

The body of the foot drive is made out of 2 types of aluminum tube. The first tube is 4"x2" with a 3/16" wall and will house the wheels and the second tube is 2 1/2" x 1 1/4" with a 1/8" wall which will be used for the channel to connect to the legs.

I purchased some metal cutting blades for my chop saw and the first cuts I made were to get the tube ends at  the proper angle so the foot shells could fit on top of it with some clearance on each end. Now the tube was not cut so it would be flush with the inside of the foot shell but instead was cut to be slightly smaller than it so that the shell could fit over the top with plenty of room to spare.

wheel housing after ends cut to size

After cutting the sides the edges on each end were chopped off. This was to remove a sharp edge off the housing and allow for better clearance in the foot shell. That sharp pointed end would actually interfere with part of the shell so it best be removed.

Edges chopped off 

The previous 2 cuts were done fairly easily using the chop saw. The next cuts were much more difficult because I would be using a jigsaw. At this point we just have a tube still and there was no opening for the wheels. So I basically had to remove the bottom section of the tube. To do this I put the metal cutting blades on the table saw and cut a couple of starter cuts large enough to fit the jigsaw blade in.

Starter cuts to remove the bottom section

Using the jigsaw I cut the bottom section out. Due to the width of the tube, I had to make the cuts on each side of the tube individually. I couldn't just make one cut and have it go through both ends. Note that to ensure that the housing remains sturdy and keeps it's shape, a section of the bottom of the tube was left intact on each side of the tube.

Bottom section removed (Sorry the pic is blurry but you should get the point

Cutting this with the jigsaw was not easy. I ended up using 10-12 metal cutting blades for the two housings. I held the jigsaw steady but it still jumped and bucked the entire time. Besides having them go dull, several blades broke as well so this was done as carefully as possible. Safety glasses, long sleeves, and other protective gear were worn at all times.