Flashback Friday: 5-23-2010, Day 40 of building R2-TD

R2 and I are heading to Lincoln NE today for a fund raising event. Also, I have a cousin graduating today in Lincoln so my whole family will be around today. None of them have seen R2 in person yet and I wanted to make the best impression I could. That meant lots of little detail work even if its just temporary. One of the things that bothered me about my last event was all the "holes". I got what parts in and covered the rest up with spare pieces of styrene. Its not perfect but looks better than a gaping hole for the photos today. Dawn and I also worked on getting my front vents built from the A&A kit. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be but the end result did not fit into my vent surrounds. I'll have to do some fine sanding but for now, just taped the vents in without the surrounds. I also got my short shaft struts painted and in place. It took a second try to paint as the weather was windy and I got in a hurry. You think I would of learned my leason after my dome painting troubles. LOL! 

I also did some temp work on the dome. I got the Front Logic and Rear logic displays in. For now I just taped the LEDs in so I wouldnt have a hole. I got my duel LED blinkers installed. For now I velcro'd a 9 volt battery inside the dome to run them. For a Flasher housing, I used a toilet paper roll and just taped it all into place. Its not pretty but has worked really well. We'll see how it holds up after todays events. I hope to have some of these temp things out by next weeks SAC event.

Heres some photos of how things turned out.

Flashback Friday: 3-31-10, Day 35 of building R2-TD

R2 is finally standing on his own feet! I had to sand the third leg a little to get it to fit. One it did, I was able to bolt it on. Than I put the motors on the legs. Than Brad and I inserted the omni balls to the third foot. There you go! A standing, rolling R2! I also found out the hard way R2 rolls around. I was almost in a car accident on my way home. I made a sudden stop and R2 went flying. Only thing I see wrong is one of the rocker bearing bolts is bent. Should be an easy fix. Anyways, heres the photos of the work.

Flashback Friday: 2-27-10, Day 31 of building R2-TD

Now I've used many glues before but today I used something and was absolutely amazed. I went to work on R2's dome today. I slipped on a patch of ice and the dome slipped out of my hand. When it was all said and done, there were 5 cracks. Brad had some tech bond handy so I thought I give it a shot. Worked like a charm. With the accelerator it made a perfect "weld" in seconds. With a little sanding and a coat of paint, you can't even tell anything was wrong. Check it out. 




Anyways, I went to work on R2's dome today with Brad. I sanded everything smooth from the mishap last week with the crackling and than we were ready to begin. We put several layers of primer on to make sure no 'foreign' substance was reacting to the paint. Things looked good so we moved to the white. After 3 light coats things were looking good. The forth, something happened and the paint began to crackle again. Not near as bad as last week but still a little there. We stopped for the night and made sure we had the dome in a warm place and will take another shot at it Sunday.