Instead of grouping related things together, I'll post the pictures in the order I worked on them.
I turned my attention next to the blade guard that gets attached to the blade guide arm that goes up and down. It needs to be made of metal so it has a low enough profile. Wood would be too fat. The enclosure I make later will cover pretty much everything else, but this needs to move up and down with the guides and requires a little more thought. I look around for suitable stock to use and get it in my mind that this old olive oil can I saved would look pretty cool.
I cut the can open and bent the corners so it would lie flat on the bench. I didn't want to mark the can up with a sharpie. I liked the design, so I used masking tape to mark my cuts instead. The wide strip of blue tape in the middle is how wide the guard has to be. The blue tape on each side is where I need to cut.
I have these old snips that used to belong to my grandfather. They are meant for exactly this kind of work.
This is the part cut out. I want to bend each side back on itself to stiffen the part and also to give me a nice soft edge instead of a razor sharp edge that would cut me. So I left about twice the length on each side to account for that.
