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Date: September 1, 2007
Days left until R2LA V: 28
Ah, September is upon us!!! This will prove to be an interesting month, as I'm now officially under the gun. That's right, dear readers. There's now pressure to get R2 finished! What is that pressure you ask???? As luck would have it, the next local gathering of R2 builders is coming up at the end of the month. Affectionately known as R2LA, my goal is to have R2 v 1.0 finished and rolling by then. Will it happen?? I sure hope so. It's on September 29th, which leaves me just under one month from today. I think I'll start a countdown on future pages to track it.
A WILDLY/CRAZILY productive day down here at ROCS. It felt like I was back in the shop again today! I was just crankin' and crankin' all day long, and well into the evening. It's really quite rewarding to have a day this productive, where so many little lingering tasks get taken care of.
The day started early with a trip to Ace Hardware. I had to get some hardware to attach some ankle details. I had previously held them in place with screws, but decided to switch to cap head screws to allow me to tighten them easier.
A huge part of my day was taken up with painting the silver details on the boosters. You wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal, but masking off all those little nooks and crannies takes time, especially if you want it done right.
Which I do.
Rather than spending another couple of hours masking off the two "eye holes" at the top of the boosters only to have to struggle to get the paint to spray directly in there, I decided to take a different approach. I took some thin sheet styrene, cut pieces out to fit inside the recesses, and then painted those. The slipped right into the booster covers, and now make for a very sharp edged painted recess. Turned out great.
In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't paint all three of these things at the same time, but what are you going to do? Here's one of the holo projectors, with it's base painted and clear coated. This was where things stood towards the end of the day. You can tell because it's night outside!
This one also took a good deal of time. Getting the masking right on the side of the holo eye took a lot of patience, and some real doing. I once again used that "delicate" scotch brand painting tape that I picked up the other day at Droid Depot, and it just works phenomenally. I was VERY impressed with the results I got on the main eye. I think this piece will look really awesome when it is attached to the dome.
UGH! Speaking of that miserable dome, here's me doing YET ANOTHER clear coat on the neck ring in order to fix the burn-throughs I made last week. Just like everything else with the dome, this was a total disaster. Despite my best efforts to clean out my spray gun, RIGHT WHEN I was working on the neck ring, the gun started acting up. It would spray GOBS of clear coat one second, and then nothing the next. The result?? I got a splotchy, bubbly, foggy, lumpy finish on the neck ring. It kind of varies as you go around the ring. Splotchy here, foggy there, etc. Man. I was so mad. I swear, that dome is out to get me. Still, I simply resigned myself to spending many hours sanding it down and getting it right after it had cured.
I also clear coated a large number of small parts. The battery straps and ankle details to be precise. Since these were all painted and cleaned up, the last thing they needed was a clear coat.
Here's a closer shot of the coin slots after clear coat. Once this cures, they'll be ready to install.
It doesn't really look like much now that it's all down on paper, but today was REALLY busy. Also REALLY hot. A heat wave is hitting Southern California, and the temperatures were around 100 all day. I was sweatin' like a bantha!
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