First I built the cages for the ball joints and mounted my bicycle seat.
The carrier layer (hole as big as the ball, as opposed to the retainer plates cut out of wood) of the cages is Delrin donated to me by the shop at work.
| Eyestalk bracket and ball joint plates stacked and drilled |
 |
| Stack of parts for one ball joint, ready for drilling on a drill press |
 |
| stack of ball joint frame parts The 3" hole in the gun box forms the final component |
 |
| Parts for ball joint frame: inner (bolt holding) carrier, outer carrier, outer keeper The carriers have 3.25" holes in them to let the ball turn freely, the keeper has a chamfered 3.00 inch hole to keep the ball in place |
 |
| Inner carrier with carriage bolts in place This will screw to the inside of the gun box, trapping the bolt heads |
 |
| Tiki Dalek, project tdk, gallifrey one, doctor who, costume, conventions, silliness closeup of outer plate, aligned to be screwed in place to the gun box. The ball was there to double check the alignment |
 |
| positioning pin to align the carrier plate. I drilled 8 holes for each plate, then flipped it and put screws through from the outside |
 |
| Carrier plate clamped in place to place screws |
 |
| Carrier plate attached to inside of gun box, inside view |
 |
| Carrier plate screwed in to inner face of gun box |
 |
| Completed gun box (with ball joint inner assemblies screwed in place) |
 |
| Inside view of assembled ball joints |
 |
| Closeup of assembled plunger arm ball joint |
 |
| Closeup of assemlbed gun ball joint |
 |
| Assembled gun box with torch gun and plunger arm |
 |
| post for bicycle seat That's a 1/2" pipe threaded into a floor flange. The saddle will just clamp on to the pipe |
 |
| Bicycle seat mounted to cross-strut |
 |