Aaaaand Almost Done With Dome Work For Now!

Had a busy few days, but did some R2 errands along the way (among other things, I picked up some CA glue and more clamps). Jumped back in full force today!

I started by rejoining the cycle of sand, paint, and dry on that pesky resin eye that's giving me so much grief with its drips and stuff. Still no love, as the day ended with me discovering more (new) drips -- so that cycle will begin, AGAIN, tomorrow. No pics, as I can hardly bear to look at it anymore!

During that whole cycle I worked on the dome proper. As promised, I tweaked some of the cutouts for the various resin pieces. For the most part this went swimmingly -- cutting aluminum is no longer daunting to me!

I decided, after several more test-fittings, to completely do away with the little cross-bar that separates the two front logics -- made getting everything aligned behind it much easier.



UNFORTUNATELY, I'd made a decision to leave on the outer dome for this trimming process -- it was just such a bear to align that I didn't want to ever remove it again. Earlier, I'd planned to tape off the areas around where I'd be cutting to protect the outer dome. Well, I FORGOT! And boy did I pay the price. The Dremel took one of its rare jumps, and skittled right over the pretty metal, leaving a couple of really nasty prominent gashes. I don't think anything can be done about this -- and it doesn't really look like natural weathering. Oh well!! :-(



After I'd finished trimming and fitting, and whimpering a bit about the "accident," it was finally time to glue on those yellow panels! I'd researched the many approaches, and chose silicon so I'd have a little wiggle-room when adjusting. I started with the top panels, and taped each one in place to cure. Or dry. Or whatever it's doing under there!



Then it was time for the bottom panels. I'd noticed when test-fitting that the many months of time the panels had been off the curve of the dome had allowed them to flatten a bit. This is why I needed clamps on the bottom ones -- to press them back into shape.



It mostly worked!

I finished the day's droid-work by gluing the little felt pads into my HP enclosures and making sure their bottoms were smooth.



As of right now most of the resin parts are taped in place. I may glue some of them in tomorrow, as well as run a bead of silicon around the bottom of the two domes. But first I'll have to deal with that pesky resin eye!!