New Construction Plan

There were some issues with my previous attempt at building the backpack: some angles weren’t quite correct, some of the places where plates were joined inside the backpack were kind of sloppy (featuring gaps and, later, excessive filler) so I decided to start over using what I learned about box joins vs. mitre joins when I was building the chest block insert… In addition, I decided to lay out a more complete plan for how the parts would be constructed, and how exactly they should be shaped. Here are the results so far:

Key changes in this version are the use of box joins to attach plates wherever possible: there are very few mitre joins on this version. The other thing I’ve learned which I’ll be applying to the new part is that it’s easier to create clean right angles on plate edges by cutting the edges slightly oversized and then sanding them down… The quality of part edges was one of the more significant problems with my earlier build, so I’ll be pleased to improve on that this time around.

Additionally, I reorganized the internal construction a bit: One of my concerns with the first build was that the left and right thruster wells weren’t at the same angle. This time, two of the three plates that form the thruster well on each side will go all the way across, which should make it easier to ensure that the angles in those areas are consistent.