dome

Well.. checking it all the time, it seems.

I am of course talking about my R2-2DO list as I call it.

The list. The list of things that needs to be fixed for my droid to be considered complete, and I’m no longer building, but merely upgrading!

I do mix up things, from making things that are actually on the list, to finding things that are not, to things that I really should postpone to a much much later date, such as work for my secondary dome!

Anyway, I have done some progress, even though it is pretty small progress at that, since I don’t have that much time to build at the moment.

First off, I’ve received a couple of packages with cool things lately.

This is the aluminum data interface that you see R2 using all the time in the movies. Man, this thing is heavy! I wonder if I can actually use it in my styrene build, or if I will need to sell it to an all-aluminium junkie…

Some cables and random things for my forthcoming droid controller.. I have plenty of things that has arrived for this one, and orders for PCB’s and electronics on the way. Jameco wanted me to upgrade the shipping to an option that cost twice the value of the components inside. They claimed it would take 6-8 weeks for this to arrive. It took less than one week =) I’m glad I refused to upgrade! =)

Today, these goodies arrived! It is the battery harnesses from Guy that has arrived! I can now finally complete the battery boxes… if they were painted, that is.

I’ve had more things come in, but nothing major, yet. I will update with a few big posts about that droid controller later on!

I have actually done some work as well.. I’ve taken off all the blue panels from the head, and they are waiting for me to sand them here before I finally paint them in the proper color. The pie panels are still on the dome, however.

This box is where I keep the goodies. You can see a rubber PSI housing for my secondary dome, the paper tube that contains the data interface, some cables, both my horseshoes and other things that have been removed from the body for now.

This is interesting. While cleaning yesterday, I somehow found it appropriate to all of a sudden, out of the blue, drill holes into my secondary dome. I guess it comes down to me cleaning, found my hole saws and figured… why not =)

These have only been rough cut out of the dome. I will need to file to perfection later on. Man, sawing fibre glass really does create a LOT of dust!

So, that’s one thing off the list, but I figured I would need to do one more thing. This is really the last thing needed for the body before it is down to sanding the body down, prime it and apply bondo!

I’ve fixed my long doors for the front. When I originally made these, I just glued them in place with my melt glue gun, thinking that I’d fix this later. Well.. it is later. I pried them loose, I’ve removed the thick ribs on the back, made new, tiny ribs, sanded the back down to get all the ribs to the right size, added a back plate and glued it all together.

I’ve clamped both my doors back to back with a piece of 0.8mm aluminium in the middle in order to get them to set with the correct curve.

Well, that’s about it!

It felt good to do some styrene work again for a change. Score and snap, that’s just nice and easy!

The last thing I need to do, is to fix up my last battery box and do a bit of TLC on the body and skin, and it’s all going to be painted!

Speaking of paint, I can also mention that I’ve decided upon the main white colour, found a supplier in Sweden and placed an order for 5 cans of satin pearl white with 4 cans of primer!

Woohoo!