wide, and varies in height; the ones I have are usually 5-1/4 “
tall. You can purchase a rack panel from any electronics supply
house, such as Allied Electronics.
You don’t have to use rack panels, but they are a handy source
of aluminum. I use pieces 1/2”-wide and 0.064” thick brass to
build the jig frame. I drill and tap through these pieces of brass
and screw them to the aluminum base with 2-56 brass screws.
As you can see in the above photo, I place sliding pieces of
brass between the pieces I screwed down to the base. Using
small C-clamps, I can adjust the height of the window or door I
am making in the jig.
It is extremely impor-
tant that the ends of the
vertical brass pieces are
perfectly square with
the base piece running
horizontally along the
base of the aluminum.
This ensures that the
pieces that have been
screwed down are per-
pendicular to the one
horizontal piece, and
therefore the sliding
pieces will make a per-
fectly square window
or door. I got the small
C-clamps at my local
hobby shop, or you can
get them from Walthers.
Since I make most of
the windows and doors
using 1/4”, 3/8”, and
5. With this jig, the width of the
window, or door is not limited
as the other jigs. By arranging
the pieces different widths can
be made.
5
Windows and doors - 4
6. Here are my 1” and 2” jigs that are used for making
large doors or very large windows.
1/2”, I have constructed jigs with multiple pieces of these vari-
ous sizes. I have a jig with 3/4”, 1”, and 2” brass pieces. These
are used to make such things as freight doors for depots.
As you can see, I also have made jigs with multiple-width
pieces; these allow me to combine various width pieces of
brass to vary the size of the opening I am building my door or
window in.
I use the multiple same-width jigs the most, because my struc-
tures usually require many windows and/or doors. For exam-
ple, my interlocking tower required 22 windows and two doors.
I make all of them before I start construction of the structure.
Using styrene structural shapes, each door or window costs
about 15 cents.
6
MRH-May 2014
