Thursday, 28 February 2008

back door, power couplers and paint!

Sooo, more building fun!
Yesterday we had another semi-fine day here in Germany (it was a little windy, but that doesn't stop me!) so I painted the last missing blue pieces, the large data port and R2's utility arms. Of course I messed up the paint job on one of the utility arms and had to redo it, I wonder if I will ever learn not to be impatient... oh well ;)
Here's a pic:


Today I went to the workshop again to work on the "main" droid, and did another step towards the finish line. First I finished the back door magnet attachment, which is basically an improved rip off of what Oscar did (thanks again ;)).
As you can see on the following pic, I installed four attachment points on the frame, with round holes in which I installed screws. The holes are just big enough to take the magnets I'm using, which I glued to the back door today. The screws hold the magnets in place, and the holes make it impossible for the door to move up and down, perfect - I hope! I couldn't check yet, as the glue I used needs 12 hours to cure. I'll go there to check it out tomorrow... patience, young padawan, you must learn patience... ;)


Another thing I started working on today was attaching the power couplers I got recently. I had some scrap plexiglass left, and needed brackets for the couplers, so I took out the heat gun! and it worked extremely well... I'm not reinventing the wheel here, so just check out the picture and you'll see how I attached the couplers:

simple solution, but works pretty well :)

Here is another pic of it mounted into the droid (the belts you see are there to hold the back door in place while the glue on the magnets dries):


and here the secured backdoor, waiting for the glue to dry:


That's it for now! All I need now is my r/c receiver to arrive, 2 or 3 more building sessions in the workshop, a nice day to paint the skins and legs and we're pretty much there :)
And there are still three weeks to go 'til Jedi Con... I'm quite positive that I'll make it! :)