But, as part of my plans, I built a wood form to use to bend the wire over. The form needed to be 8"x6"x4". I had fun cutting some scrap boards, running the pieces through the bench planer for utter flattness , gluing them together, and then sanding them smooth this afternoon. Perfect 8"x6"x4" blocks.
But, um, something didn't look right...
You remember those school tests where they showed you a folded shape and you had to decide what it looked like when unfolded? I was great at those. Except this time!
I got one side off by 2"! I had the small ends of the cages diagrammed at 4"x4" and they needed to by 4"x6". If I hadn't actually built the wood form for bending the wire mesh around, I would have cut all the pieces the wrong size.
Look at the end of this; it obviously isn't 4"x4"...
I was lucky that there was a series of events that led me to see my error. I had to take the roll of 3'x50'x1/2" wire mesh and unroll part of it. The roll is held tight by some wire that has to be cut away. And it was rolled under tension, so when I cut the last wire, it sort of exploded. Which I was expecting, but not quite the way it did it.
I'm not stupid, I wore goggles as I cut the last wire. You never know quite how these rolls will suddenly unwind. It's a guy thing. You KNOW its gonna get you somewhere but not just WHERE. Fortunately, I heal very fast. Ever get shots or give blood? They slap a bandage right on you. I don't need them.
So I had to flatten it to be able to cut the sections off in the size I needed later.
Where I looked at the wood block form I realized that I had a dimension wrong. Not on the wood block; on my wire mesh cutting diagram. I just spent 30 minutes redesigning my cutting pattern on the wire mesh.
Sometimes you just have to build shapes in reality to make sure they are right!
