Date: February 1, 2007
Total hours spent today: 5

Today was a fairly short day, and much of that time was spent blundering. Well, to be more specific, it was spent on the dome.

I took a good hard look at my dome today, and made a decision. The original direction I was going with the dome was to make it highly reflective. My plan was to polish the heck out of it, and get a mirror like finish on it. You know, like at the end scene of ANH when they get their medals and all that. Some parts of the dome were looking REALLY good and mirror like, but other parts didn't look so good. There were sanding marks all over the place, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that having a mirror finish dome was going to be a logistical nightmare. Keeping a high polish on aluminum is tough, and I didn't want to start crying up a storm any time R2 took a hit to the head. So I decided to knock down the finish on the dome to something more manageable. In fact, I decided the level of "shine" I wanted on my dome was whatever could be achieved with scotch brite pads. So I spent a couple of hours knocking it down, buffing out the trouble spots, and basically just cleaning it up. It came out really great, and I think the finish looks very authentic to how R2 usually looked in ANH. So that's cool.

But the bummer with this finish is that you cannot touch it without smudging it. I spent about an hour driving around Oakland looking for an auto parts store. Finally found one, and got some Maquires wax. Ran back to the shop, and took a stab at it. It started out good, but the bummer about the wax is that it's also a polish, which means it kinda backfired on me, and I ended up with an uneven finish... again. oh, the humanity of it all. So I got out the scotch brite pads again, and took off the wax. My new plan is to paint it with clear coat once it gets to a point where I'm happy with it. Sadly, no pictures of any of this!!

So aside from dome polishing, the other thing I wanted to get done was to figure out how to make the tool doors on the front skins stay closed using the magnets that I glued on the other day. By the way, I got the magnets on ebay. I did a search for "Rare earth magnets" and found exactly what I needed. The ones I'm using are 1/4" x 1/16" thick. They're so strong, it's almost weird. So here's a picture of them attached to the insides of the doors.

My next trick was to give the magnets something to hold on to. I was originally thinking of using washers, but I would have had to stack them up and do weird things to get one to hang over the door at the right height to engage the magnet. So I sat around scratching my head for a while, trying to figure out where I was going to find a thin strip of conductive material. Then I remembered that I had a ton of razor blades in my tool drawer! So I pulled a few out, and used pliers to strip off the bent metal cap to the blade. I trimmed it down with snippers, cleaned it up with a file, and then shaped it so that it would lie flat on the skin, but be raised up the right height to properly engage the magnet. Here's what it looks like. Pretty simple

Here's where I owe a big thanks to the R2 builders club, and in particular, Daniel Deutch. He had a rant the other day where he was wailing on JB Weld, and he recommended an alternative adhesive. Basically, for the price of a few small tubes of JBWeld, you get a big stick of this stuff, and it's like a million times more powerful. This stuff is used to keep door panels on cars and stuff. It's a product made by Evercoat, and is called Maxim Universal Bonding Adhesive. or something like that. It comes in a few different varieties, but I decided to get the most versatile flavor. Here's a link to the product page on Evercoats website. This will be the first time I use it, so we shall see how it goes. Like JB Weld, it's a two part glue that takes about 24 hours to cure completely. It's workable for a few hours.

Though not pictured, I did get all of the magnet tabs glued into place. They're drying right now.

I set about installing the rear logic display next. Basically involved drilling some holes in the inner dome, counter sinking them, and then attaching the housing. I'm starting to think that I may want to replace the entire inner dome. Even down low, like where this housing is attached, it's still sitting too far below the outer dome. I'll have to think on that one further. Could be more trouble than it's worth.

Another view of the rear logic display. I'm curious as to why it doesn't really match the contours of the dome. I may need to try mounting it at an angle. Though not pictured, I also spent a bunch of time making the hole for the logic display bigger. It was initially cut too small. Once again, the coping saw saved the day. I learned my lesson on the inner dome trimming fiasco earlier on in the build.

And here I'm using that "maxim" glue again to attach the little blocks of PVC that I cut the other day. These are for mounting the skins on.