frame

Almost there…

After a long night of building and trying to fit things into very small and cramped spaces, I have made some headway into what is really starting to look promising!

The body is still filled with holes, as I need to clear coat two more doors tomorrow, but I’ve started mounting the bits that go into the body here and there.

I still need to wait until tomorrow, as my fiancée really doesn’t like the smell of the E-6000 glue, so I have to do it outside!

I’ve got my vents and coin returns standing by, and once I’ve got my doors back home, the body will be more or less complete!

I’ll leave that as a teaser for tomorrow or the weekend, but I’ll leave you with this image before I hope to bed..

By |2016-12-06T00:00:56+01:00November 1st, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Almost there…
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Fixing up the power couplers

For a while, I have been searching for a pair of aluminium power couplers to replace my old, resin ones!

After looking around for months and months, I bought a second had pair from Daren Murer, who made my lovely dome for my droid!

These were used and painted already, and used a different type of mounting that I had in mind, so I had a bit of work to do!

First off, This is what they looked like when I received them:

The paint is a bit thick for my taste, and the finishing on them is a bit scruffy looking, no doubt as a result of the weathering of the droid the were on before arriving at my place!

After cleaning it up a bit, it looks like this:

Next up is masking off the areas that should not be painted…

After painting the pieces, this is what it looks like!

Old one on the left, and the freshened up version with my own blue colour on the right

Now I’ve only got to fix up the second one. Mounting inside the frame is already fixed and tested! =)

By |2016-12-06T00:01:00+01:00October 28th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Fixing up the power couplers
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Eradicating Irregularities

More and more small things are crossed off my list.. and many more things that I find along the way that never was on the list to begin with, but should probably have been there…

While preparing the body for painting, I decided to fix another small thing that had bothered me a bit. It seems that my frame was not 100% straight at the top, making a slightly larger gap between the dome ring and the frame right where the shoulders attach. The gap here was about 3mm, while it was 1mm around the rest of the body.

So, setting out to fix it, I started with adding a smaller strip of styrene around the top of the frame, outside the rockler, but quickly scrapped the idea, fortunately before the glue had set permanently!

Instead, I reinforced the top frame ring with 2mm styrene around the shoulders!

2 pieces of styrene added, time to trim it flush and mark where to sand..

This was done on both sides, and I spent a good 45 minutes outside with my detail sander smoothing these out, but once I was done, it looked great and smooth. I test fitted with the rockler, found 2 more areas where a little more was needed to take off, once the rockler was sitting flush all around (which it wasn’t before, let me tell you) I mounted it again and put the dome on top.

The gap is now nice and flush. You can still see the old gap in the gray area above.. I’ve got a 1.5 mm gap all around the dome! I may remove a bolt inside and use washers instead to make this gap even smaller, I haven’t decided yet.

When I was working with the rockler, I also removed a few of the acetal bearings inside to make it run smoother. I also gave it a good sprayng of teflon spray while at it.

Now, I’ve removed the Pittman dome motor while sanding, but without the motor, this is how freely the dome now spins…

I feel quite happy with this change, and without the gap, it feels even better!

I celebrated the new spinning dome by getting another item dome on my list: I fixed and finalized one of the battery boxes! bondoed, sanded, everything!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:15+01:00September 30th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Eradicating Irregularities
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