The rope bundles are the main engine of the machine. The framework that holds everything together is about 24 ft long, and 6 feet tall.

The Scutula (Hole carriers) await their fate on a pile of rocks. The round donut was found in this shape at a scrap yard and is 1 inch thick. The green rectangular donut was torched out of some sort of factory floor support, and is 3/4 inch thick. (Also from a scrap yard.) These will become the major hole carriers for one torsion bundle. A matching set will be used for the second bundle.

Oops, we cut the holes in two of our hole carriers a bit large last year. Here Eric is adding a couple lbs of steel back onto the inside edge of the scutula prior to the milling operations.

Unfortunately the 1" thick scutula pieces that we had scavenged from the scrapyard turned out to be cast iron. This prevented us from welding up our rope bundles properly. Rather than replace them (with all the necessary machining tasks to the new pieces) we decided to bolt on some steel adapter plates (auriculae) that can be welded to the stanchions. Here we are drilling and tapping holes in the adapters plates to fasten them to the cast iron scutula.

Fitting adapters between the regulae and the bottom scutulas of the rope bundles. Here you can see the new adapter plates temporarily bolted in place.

We've finally started welding together the rope bundles. Here Eric welds a stanchion onto one of the 3/4" thick steel scutulas. Getting them to be perpendicular was a bit of a challenge, as the next step required a perfect fitting on a 6 inch by 10 inch area at the end of 6 feet.

Once the stanchions were welded to the steel scutula, we lifted that unit in the air with Dave's engine crane. We had to get the stanchions to fit perfectly onto the auriculae we built and bolted onto the cast iron scutula.

Since it was impossible (with the tools we had on hand) to line up the stanchions perfectly, we had to use a little persuasion to make them line up as we deemed proper. Here Kevin measures as he and Dave contemplate where the welds will go. You can see the car jack spreading the two stanchions apart to better line up with the adapters on our cast iron scutulas.

Huzzah! The rope bundles are complete! Dave and Kevin show off how they can disguise themselves as a rope bundle. Our rope bundle will eventually be about 11 inches in diameter, and almost 7 feet long.

Our rope arrived today! (10-25-2002). This is 1200 ft of 3/4" polypropylene wrapped in the original shipping packaging.

The Thursday night before the chunk we started winding the rope bundles. Here you can see that we used our pin holes to bolt the modiolii onto the machine while we started winding. In addition, you can see the small bits of chain welded to the end which we later used as hitching points while winding the rope bundles.

Here Kevin is keeping tension on the existing winds of rope while Jeff sorts out a tangle. The lines we wound in each rope bundle are 600ft long of 3/4 inch thick polypropylene.