The working drawing, with annotations
With the basic design, well, designed, I needed to crack-on with the build as soon as I could. Not having access to a ton of scrap metal, welding kit, or a trailer in which to move it (or indeed a crane to unload it all), I would be making this beast out of wood.
Based on the measurements taken from the back of the car (and of the doorways/stairwell to the cellar which would be my workshop), I made some fairly rough plans, and set about gathering the materials...
Since starting the project, I had got a new day job, working as a DT Technician at a large local secondary school. This meant less time off than my previous job, but better access to materials and tools. And a workshop with a circular saw, bandsaw, pillar-drills, belt sanders, and all manner of other fun toys. Anyway, one of our main sources of free materials was a local firm who did laser-cut worktops and the like, and they let us periodically load-up the school minibus with as much scrap and offcuts as we could carry, entirely free. OK so as the above picture of the quality of our goods loading shows, we were never going to be invited to work for Eddie Stobart or anything, but then that's what you get when you only have a minibus and not a four-ton truck.
About once every month a couple of us would head over, then bring all this material back for sorting. Not all of it was suitable for the projects, some of it being too small, too long, the wrong thickness, and so on. Rather than throw it out therefore, I put this otherwise useless material on one side for the Jabberwock.
Likewise, when cutting down the boards to usable planks, lots of bits of stripwood were created, and again, the bits which were not useful in projects were set aside for the Jabberwock...
...along with any other useful-looking bits of scrap.
The workshop, in the cellar of my in-laws house. It was far better than anything I could manage at my own house, and was crucially very close to a kettle...
The first stage of the build was to make the ‘chassis’, the parts of which were recycled from an aborted build of a model railway. In turn, these parts had been recycled from a massive, hand-built dresser unit which had sat in the tearoom of my old job before its first refurbishment. It was a lovely bit of furniture, built like a tank, and it was a shame to break it up (but there was no other way to get it out of the building and we didn't need it there any more), so at least the wooden elements of it live on in some way here. The wood of the main ‘board’ was cut down somewhat laboriously with a jigsaw, after which I decided to cut absolutely everything else that needed cutting at work, using the circular saw, during my lunch breaks or after work...
Note also the dustbin, which would form the basis of the vertical boiler, because I couldn't find a neater solution. That said, it did come in very useful for storing smaller parts during the build and later transport stages...
The frames were cut to size, then for visual interest (and to reduce the considerable weight) holes were made using drilled pilot-holes and a jig saw. Very, very laboriously. They're a little on the wonky side, the holes, but then this will only ever be glimpsed underneath so not a major concern...
The frames assembled...
A start was made on the upperworks of the machine.
An additional base was made to support the bin/boiler, to give it some more height.
A raised block was created to both give more height and to create a slot on each side into which the caterpillar tracks could be slid and secured.
I decided to follow the Forth Railway Bridge school of design philosophy, as I had neither the time nor inclination to start stress-testing components. With so much scrap and recycled material to hand, over-engineering seemed the best approach to take. This damned thing was going to have to survive being built, dismantled, driven to Cumbria, carried to location, rebuilt, and then sit for six weeks in the glorious Cumbrian Liquid Sunshine, after all.
I then moved onto the two most complicated bits of the build, the caterpillar tracks...
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