Next it’s time to expand the center hole of the bottom circle. This will be so I can secure a blind nut to the top circle (more on blind nuts later).
For this I break out a drill hole saw. What a fun toy.

Here’s the center hole cut out. All the access holes are done now. Let’s get this thing together and see what happens.

It’s kinda hard to tell what’s going on here. But I need to 1st screw the bottom plate of the bearing to the bottom circle. I used long wood screws to line it up with the screw holes in the top. Then I used the calipers to double check that it’s centered. Then it’s the same process as screwing in the top plate, mark holes, drill small pilot holes half way through the wood, screw in the plate.

With everything upside down on the work bench I can line up the top plate with the screw holes and line up the access holes so I can screw them in from the bottom. Everything lines up freakishly well.

Normally when I have to screw something down a hole like this it’s a simple matter of rubbing the screwdriver on a magnet (remember 4th grade earth science). Rub a magnet on a piece of metal and it becomes a magnet. This would be great if some genius wasn’t using all stainless steal hardware (hint, magnets don’t adhere to stainless steal). My thinking while buying the hardware was “you never know when Shells could be swifting in the rain“.

So rather than waiting to get to a hardware store for different screws I remembered a trick I read in a magazine a long, long time ago (in a land far, far away). Use a piece of electrical heat shrink tubing to hold the screw to the screwdriver. Then you can start the screw down a hole and pull the tubing off. Lucky for me I had the right size heat shrink handy.

Here’s a view of the bottom with everything screwed together.

And the top view.