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!!

More Dome Work

More work accomplished today -- I decided to just cut away the dome bumps area on the inner dome for better bump fit:





That was the last thing to do before placing the outer dome over the inner, and fussing with it until it was back in position. I'm only going to run silicon around the bottom to fix the two together. The radar eye screws should hold the domes together, according to some experts!

Finally, I'm at the point of test-fitting the panels and resin parts!





I'm going to have to fine-tune some of the cuts -- will do that tomorrow. Then, hopefully glue on all those panels!! :-D

You Must Undo What You Have Done!

Yes, that's a mangled Yoda-ism. :-)

What did I have to undo? Well, a bit of painting. You see, one should not paint where one intends to apply glue, because then the bond will only be as strong as the paint's bond to whatever it's on. I guess I forgot that I'd be gluing my dome bits on, because I should have masked off the glue areas. Since I didn't, I got to sand off those areas! Extra work, just for meeee!



Once I'd finished the sanding job I decided to install the cabochons in my holoprojectors. We are warned in the instructions that this is a tricky job -- but the first one went in easily! Lulled and overconfident I became, yeessss.

The second and third cabochons took forever to get done -- and I had to invent a way! After using the retaining clip tool to get the clip in partway the tools would then fail, leaving me with a clip that couldn't be gripped! I ended up using a small hammer on a screwdriver to drive the clip down. It really tore up the inside of the HP, but I think it'll pass muster.





I'd planned to glue in the little felt bits, but the recommended CA glue was nowhere to be found amongst my rapidly-growing glue collection! Will have to go buy some later... grrrr!

Dome Bits Continued...

More painting yesterday! I started by masking off the radar eye to preserve the aluminum grooves. Hopefully this will work.



First few coats of yellow, then a dry overnight before sanding. Rinse, repeat!



An example of what goes wrong when Bith uses spray paint. Luckily these drips will be hidden by the cowling. Still, really annoying!



I've just sanded and put more yellow on the radar eye...and see drips like those above. Going to let dry, sand, and try again tomorrow maybe.

Luckily there's always something else to do!

Dome Bits

Painting day. It was a bit overcast today, but the temp and humidity were within the limits on my cans of paint and primer, so I went for it. I went for it. <--- Aren't those someone's famous last words?

The basic idea is to make all the resin dome bits look as if they were fabricated from metal. Using spray paint!

Mind you, I can paint using brushes, I'm pretty great using an airbrush, but spray paint requires some arcane, inscrutable method that has eluded me for a lifetime! Conditions might well nigh be perfect, I might use endless feather-light misty coats...yet still something ALWAYS goes awry.

So I begin with several carefully-applied layers of primer (the sandable kind):



After testing my two samples of aluminum paint on some scrap, I proceed with trying to make the magic happen.

Well, drips happened. Spatters happened. Cracks happened. Quivering lower lips happened!

I let each coat dry 1/2 hour between applications, and it still looked rotten. I could tell it looked rotten, even though by the end of painting it was nearly dark. How rotten will it look in the light of day? Ack! Here is a shot under indoor light. Hmmm, we shall see if any of this can be fixed, or if I'm going to have a droid that looks weathered before I've started weathering it!

Scrubbity, scrubbity...

Today was resin parts prep day. I need to remove the release agent from all my resin parts - I'd been saving this chore until I had every part I'm planning to use on my droid. Following Keith's instructions each part was swabbed with alcohol, scrubbed and soaked, rinsed and wiped dry. Woo, it was just like washing a massive load of dishes!!



Here they all are, ready for trimming (as needed), sanding, primering, painting etc.



Remembering horror stories I'd read on astromech.net about storing painted parts, everything I was not going to be working with immediately was packed up again. I also discovered that I missed ordering enough ankle cylinders, so I've either got to get 2 more ordered...or make them myself! Not sure which I'll do, but I've got a while until I get to the ankles so we shall see.

Earlier in the day I'd masked off the area on the inner dome that gets painted, took it outside, and primered and painted it in between resin washing sessions. When I was nearly done, I noticed that I'd forgotten to sand the spin lines down, and now they show through!! Ack! Not sure what I'm going to do about this, but as it's now dark I'll figure it out tomorrow... *sigh*



As I'm hoping to start painting my resin dome parts tomorrow, I finished the day by grinding down the back of the radar eye, and trimming the logics a bit for perfect fit. I think everything's ready for paint!



Hopefully I'll be staying on this roll! :-D

All Hail the Hole-Saw!

Yes, sometimes I feel a sense of near-worship for my power tools. Today's hero? The hole-saw!

Back at R2LA, we met a lovely couple from parts North. Sadly, I can't seem to retrieve names, but they were great! The gentleman-half of the duo mentioned that he'd seen my drilled dome, and that he'd found a better way to produce those HP holes: the hole-saw! Mind you, I'd considered it myself, but was afraid the force of the saw would contort the aluminum. He assured me that it would work like a charm...ah, the wisdom of the builder's group strikes again!

So yes, after a long holiday-hiatus, here we are a-droiding afresh. Now that we've got lovely weather back, and the Christmas decorations are finally put away, I've returned, and I've got my dome in my sights.

I finished off the one HP hole I'd made the most progress on, taped off the one hole that needs to look perfect, and dremelled out all the straight cuts for the front and rear logics. Guys and gals -- be sure to wear a mask when doing this, unless you want lungs full of aluminum dust! Just sayin'...



I'm lucky enough to own two dremels (I guess that should really be Dremels, with a capital D) so I kept them both at hand, loaded with cutting disks. These disks will wear down and shred frequently, launching shrapnel in all directions (note the piece stuck in the cut in the second photo below). I recommend long sleeves and protective eyewear at all times too! And maybe a cupcake, behind you, as motivation. Couldn't hurt!



Filing down sharp edges is important...here I pose with my file in my left hand. I'm not left-handed.



For the holes I had left, I broke out the previously-lauded HOLE SAWS! All those drill-holes I'd put in were simply not needed: I found the center of each hole, started it using a teensy (that's tech talk) bit, then powered through the hole in seconds using the HOLE SAW! Dear readers, it was so elegant and simple I could have wept. Just look at those perfect holes!!



The Hole Saw is so awesome I may need to make a shrine for it... :-) True, it was noisy as all get-out, and shimmied rather fiercely, but I felt pretty cool for taming the thing and bidding it to do my WILL!

Tomorrow -- a bit of paint on the inner dome, and some resin parts prep. Droid work is back ON!