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Of course, my frame design began with vinyl templates. During the course of the construction, I added and modified the plans to fit.

The templates are all applied to the 1/2" Birch plywood sheet. It all fit on a single 4'x4' sheet. The plans are a mix of some good concepts from other frames I've seen, as well as my own ideas.

Wow! That was a LOT of cutting! Everything is cut out with the jigsaw and bansdaw.

The frame is assembled. I didn't take any pics of the process, because this design is not very complicated. The entire thing is screwed together. I don't quite have the trust or the patience for wood glue that some builders do.

On the top, you can see where the tabs on the vertical pieces fit into the ring. I secured it all with drywall nails, since they have a good wide bite (and, I had enough to finish the job).

A shot of the inside from through the body. I didn't want the screws to interfere with the skins later on, so the second layer is secured from within. All the screws were pre-drilled and counter-sunk.

From the bottom, I secured the pre-skirt layer to the verticals. Again, pre-drilled and counter-sunk. I tried to get the screws in far enough that the skirt would hide them. It should work...

Here is the rear door. It's a basic ribbed structure, and I just held the pieces flush to the exterior while I drilled and screwed it together.

Since the door kinda sticks, I thought I'd also take a pic of the door open. It's a very tight fit at the moment. Later I'll sand it way down to allow smoother operation.

The utility arm bays are constructed and installed. This was harder than I thought, especially having to hold the 1/4" thick curved pieces together while I hand-drilled the holes from the sides.

The vertical supports on either side of the main vent area are also installed. The front of the frame is based more around the JAG style frame. I liked its minimal but effective structural support.

For the flat sides, I laminated two pieces of the 1/2" birch together to make a full 1" plank on either side. That'll give the shoulders a nice sturdy anchor to hang on to.

I also went back and sanded down the tops of all the vertical rails to ensure nothing got in the way of the Rockler bearing's even mounting.

I flipped the frame upside-down and removed the areas of the bottom panel that correspond with certain details. Since my skins will be installed permanently, this will allow me access to things like the power couplings and octagon ports, should I ever need to repair/ replace them. These open sections will be covered by a sheet of styrene on the bottom. Some of the ribs are also routered to make room for these pieces.

Well, I had a full set of inner and outer skins completely cut in .040" styrene, but I found that trying to install the inner layer was insanely hard. It wouldn't wrap consistently, and the places with cutouts bent at a further angle than the solid pieces, so I scrapped the inner layer for an uncut piece of styrene. I wrapped it and pulled it tight, and it rolled a lot more smoothly, since it was all a solid piece. Once secured, I'll remove the cutouts later.

Tape was used to pull the skins tight around the body, and small nails tacked it in aling the vertical risers adjacent to the rear access section. Since the rear will be removeable anyway, I just used a piece that barely reached over the edges of the rear door. I tacked it every couple inches to ensure a secure fit.

Though I forgot to show it, I added a curved piece to each side plank that matched up with the outer circumference of the frame. That let me use heavy-duty staples to secure the inner skins above and below the place where the shoulder flange goes.

I popped through the predrilled holes for the leg mounting bolts from the inside. That let me see where to start removing material to allow the flange to fit in. I test-fit and removed little by little until the flange fit.

Enough styrene was removed to allow the flange to fit into the skin nice and tight.

A view from the back, with the inner skin on and the shoulder flanges installed.

For the rear door, the excess styrene was trimmed straight along the edge.

The overhanging styrene on the top and bottom were also sanded even with the frame. I didn't bother worrying about that before. I wanted to concentrate on getting the skins tight instead.

The styrene was removed to make room for the large data port, and the middle section of the outer skin located directly below it is glued in place. This will aid in ensuring the skins are installed straight.

Next, the main portion of the front outer skin is lined up and held in place with clamps.

I traced out the inner outlines of all the places where a hole will be cut all the way through the skins. This includes areas like the utility arms (shown), main vents, power coupling, octagon port and vents.

I rough-cut out the holes in the inner skin for the utility arms and the main vents. The only reason I cut these out before attaching the outer skin was...

...to make sure the slats inside the front of the frame lined up well. The vertical supports on either side of the main vents were re-aligned, and the utility arm carriage was braced a bit tighter against the skin, ensuring a nice curve on the outside.

The inner skins were secured tightly with about fifty heavy-duty staples, then tapped in deeper with a small hammer. I made sure to double-check and keep the staples under areas where the outer skin will hide them.

Then, in the most nerve-racking five minutes of the entire build, I traced styrene cement over the underside of the outer skin, flipped it over, and began a furious effort to clamp, tape, push and smash the outer skins into the right place.

The styrene cement sets in a minute or two, but needs a full two hours to completely cure. In the end, a few of the lines are out of square and some of the panels aren't completely down, but when you step back, you don't even see it.

Even though I didn't show any pics of the arduous process of hand-cutting the skins, one down side of styrene skins is the "lip" of displaced plastic that forms next to the blade along each cut. I went back and sanded down the edge of every panel before cutting the other holes in the front.

The back panel get its layer of inner skin. The middle part on the bottom (the pic is upside-down) was also removed to make room for the rear power coupling.

I just took a flat sheet, pulled it tight, stapled it, then trimmed the excess on the sides to make sure it still fit on the body.

The test fit is a good match. The top and bottom were left long, because the rear hatch fits inside the top and bottom rings of the frame.

A shot from the inside.

The rear panel is secured with tape, then trimmed and filed even with the top and bottom of the frame.

The full rear outer skin is held in place for me to trace the locations of the rear details.

The slightly modified rear outer skins are trimmed to their final sections.

Now with more clamps, the sections of the rear skins are cemented in place to either side of the rear hatch.

The outer skins are also glued in place on the rear panel.

The rest of the frames and panels on the front are glued into place.

The frames and panels are completed on the backside, too.

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