The twenty-four linked hardwood wedges formed a nonstop timber ring beneath the five-hundred-ton Harmonic Core.
Each wedge had been planed by Master Caleb Thorne-Wood to a care of five hair-fractions, fitted with blind wood slot-and-wooden peg guide keys that prevented any lateral drift.
Under one million pounds of dead crushing weight, the timber bed distributed the load across forty square feet of the receiver overhead frame, dampening all tiny clockwork shaking.
The clockwork posture of the twenty-four leveling wedges had needed eighteen hours of nonstop, tiny shift.
Crawling on his belly through the narrow crawlspace between the receiver overhead frame heavy beams and the lower pivot pin plates, Giles had checked the height of each timber wedge with a care depth hair-width.
“Every wedge is seated within two ten-thousandths of an inch,” Giles called out from beneath the dark cradle.
“The linked wood slot keys have engaged their matching slots. The timber bed is fully locked against lateral slip.”
Toby Karr knelt at the edge of the access hatch, shining his brass check lamp into the shadows.
