cool design how to build a frame for a
mega solar scorcher
now this frame worked really well
especially on a budget I’m pretty sure
the whole thing cost about $10 to
assemble so that was pretty good but
over the years this thing has taken a
lot of wear and tear to the point where
now it can’t even hold itself up anymore
that’s why it’s leaning up against the
workbench right now combining that with
the fact that our lens is covered with
marks and scratches and debris and a
bunch of smoke from so many things that
it’s burned it’s time to build a new one
and upgrade the design a little bit
we’ve got a new lens and we’ve got
materials for a frame and this design is
going to be based a little bit on our
desktop solar scorcher which I think
will provide a little bit more sturdy of
a structure once it’s complete the first
step is going to be isolating the
fernell lens itself so we don’t have the
obnoxious frame or any other layers of
plastic that may be attached to it
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there’s the part we want you now have
the frame and just this spare piece of
plastic that was in front of the fernell
lens protecting it maybe we’ll use that
for something at this point I think we
can discard this frame unless we want to
just use it for posing after isolating
the fernell lens the first step is going
to be to build a frame just around the
lens portion of it previously grant used
two two by fours ripped in half to build
the frame around the lens I’m going to
base my design on that and I will use a
2 by 4 ripped in half for the top and
bottom of the lens but for the size I’m
going to use two by fours with their
complete width because I think that will
add some more strength into the hinge
mechanism this lens is 41 inches wide by
31 inches tall let’s build our frame to
match that
I’ll leave three quarters of an inch
space on the long sides of our fernell
lens because that’s where the wider part
of the frame is going to attach so for
the top and bottom we’ll cut off two
pieces of the half 2×4 and then cut a
groove down that so it fits nicely on
the lens now these two pieces that we’ve
cut and added a groove to should
perfectly house the ends of our fernell
ends our 2×4 is about the width that I
want but I want it to have a nice square
edge so I’ve got the table saw set to
just barely wide enough to cut off that
curved edge and then it should meet up
nicely without losing too much of the
width now that we have our two-by-four
with the square rift edge we can measure
exactly how long we want it to be to
line up just perfectly with the ends
excellent now just like we did it with
the top and bottom of the frame we need
to add a groove that cuts three-quarters
of an inch down into the middle of our
two by fours you’ve now got all four
sides of our frame cut let’s see how
well they fit together the hinge on this
frame is going to have a long bolt that
runs through most of the side frame and
then through the to supporting pieces
that hold the frame up we’ll need to
drill two holes into our 2×4 one that’s
wide enough that the head of the bolt
can fit and one that’s slightly narrower
but wide enough for this piece of tubing
we’re going to have some spacers between
frame and each of the legs but even with
that we should be able to fit a fair
amount of the bolt inside our 2×4 this
is the depth that we want the wider hole
cut and then our narrower hole will go
do that same thing on our other
two-by-four
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the larger first hole we drilled should
accommodate the head of our bolt we now
need to drill the smaller hole that will
accommodate the copper pipe that our
we did most of our drilling with our
drill press but it doesn’t have quite a
deep enough plunge to get all the way
through this 2×4 so to finish it off
we’ve put the bit into the hand drill
and we’ll just be finishing the drill
hole with that we’ve measured off the
length that we need to perfectly fill
this hole let’s cut that off with a
hacksaw and then push it down into the
wood dropping this bolt down through I’m
hoping that this will let it pivot
nicely without the bolt wearing down on
the wood do the same thing for the other
side excellent as a last step before I
assemble the four pieces of the frame
around the fernell lens I want to add a
router edge just to make it a little bit
nicer and cleaner looking
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the screws I’m going to be using aren’t
long enough to reach all the way through
a 2×4 into the other piece of wood so
I’ll drill a larger hole to about here
one inch in and then I’ll pre-drill the
rest of the 2×4 as well as the side
the frame that holds the fernell lens is
now assembled so it’s time to add the
four legs on to our mega solar scorcher
I’ve got these one by three plates of
wood I’m going to use four of them as
the feet there will be two on each side
instead of them being next to each other
like they were before they’ll actually
be overlapping each other with the hinge
running through the middle let’s measure
the lengths we want these legs to be cut
them off of that length and then drill
the holes where we want our hinge to go
now that’s where we’re going to have the
hinge go let’s add another inch and a
half on top of that just to make sure
it’s a nice sturdy connection fifty nine
and a half inches will be where we’ll
each of these four boards now needs its
own small section of pipe to act as a
all four of our legs have been cut to
length drilled and had their own section
of hinge pipe added so we should be able
to thread these on to the bolts and have
some feet we don’t want just the wood
flush up against the wood there will be
too much friction as we try and open and
close it or swing our frame so let’s add
some nylon washers to make our hinge
turn a little bit more easily to add a
bit more strength and so that we have a
spot where we can lay down a board to
focus our solar scorcher on whatever
we’re trying to burn let’s add two
supports on each of these legs going
down the sides I’ve got some 1 by 2
board and that’s what we use for our
side supports unlike on the last solar
scorcher these supports won’t go in
between the two legs one set of supports
will go on top of one pair of legs and
the other set of sports will go on the
other side of the other pair of legs
that way it should still be able to
collapse down all the way flat the way
it’s laying right now
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our side supports are trimmed to the
right length and we’ve smoothed down all
the edges using the router now we’ll use
a couple of screws on each side to
really attach them in place our frame
holds itself up it has two supports on
the bottom and by tightening or
loosening these wing nuts on the side we
can actually hold the frame in place to
help make it easier to carry this mega
solar scorcher I’ve got a couple of gate
handles I’m gonna attach those to the
outside legs on both sides with our
handles attached there’s one more
addition I want to make and that’s
something that we have on the mini solar
scorcher and that’s the Sun pointing
screws we’ll add a screw on to the top
and bottom of our lens that should be
perfectly perpendicular to the direction
that the lens is facing which means we
can use the shadow of the screw to know
when the lens is perfectly lined up with
fantastic love this drill press
everything about it
[Music]
based on the design of the mini solar
scorcher here is the mega scorcher 2.0
we’re using the same style of giant fern
L lens but a sturdier design for the
frame itself so it should be a lot
easier to position to carry around and
to just have it stay working well for a
long time the hinge works very nicely
and very smoothly and as you can see
it’s really well balanced anywhere that
I put it it just stops right there and
then if I want to make it a little bit
more sturdy so it really can’t turn I
can tighten the wing nuts on the side
and that adds a lot more resistance to
twisting it
our pointers at the top and bottom
should work really well for aiming our
screen directly at the Sun which should
help us get just the right amount to
focus when we’re trying to burn
something hey guys there’s still more to
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