Primer complaining

So it's been a few weeks, had trips to OK and AZ over the past few weeks, so had nothing to talk about.

No pictures, they would be awful.

Let me just say I hate primer. I know I might have mentioned it in previous posts. Primer shows every little defect.

Basically I rushed home from work to primer the legs today. Have to, with it being 45 degrees outside and dark 30 minutes after I get home.

I painted the legs, and need some serious filler work around the edges where the sintra meets the black. Gotta make it look like it's one piece, and that's kinda tough sometimes. Now there's primer all over them that's got to be sanded too...

Spent most of the evening making the battery boxes. They are pretty, except there's nothing on the tops and bottoms. I decided to try using 2 liter plastic for them, since it's flexible and once sanded, should be paintable. Now that I'm to the point of using that, I'm considering going to buy some "beware of dog" or "for sale" signs made of sintra.

Brighter side, I ordered some more stuff from Powerwerx. They are making me a special battery cable to put 2 batteries in parallel, so I don't have to. also ordered some red/black 16 gauge wire since the 12 gauge that came with the starter kit doesn't really fit either speed controller.

I've also ordered a VMusic2, from Australia, and a PICAXE18 and board from the UK, so I can figure out how to make him talk...

also been pondering what I'm going to mount all this stuff on, since someone posted their new Com-8 mount board pics and made me wonder.

I could say more, but that's enough, since I need SLEEP now :)

Little steps...that's how you get this done.

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to put my shoulder hubs in and mark them:



checked the marks, they are all symmetrical and stuff.


I set the depth on my drill press and was just about to drill when for some reason I flipped the hub over and noticed that had I drilled as planned I would have ruined the hubs, as the drill bit would have come all the way through the hub:


Today I was back to that problem, as was just about to ask for opinions on Astromech.net, and was measuring what I was working with, when I decided to just cut 1/8" off the screws, so that instead of 1/2" they are now 3/8" long. I screwed them in and tested, and they work fine when putting them in. Taking them out is another story, since they tend to turn too far and get stuck, but that'll be another project. Next I made myself a template for how far in the screws should be, using 2 pieces of 1/8" scrap glued together and a channel drilled into the plasic like so:



Then a few drops of CA in the hole, screwed the screw in a few turns, used the template to make sure it's the right height, and Voila! The screws SHOULDN'T fall out any time soon.

In other news, Monday night I filled the seams on the outer feet. That took about 2 hours and close to 4oz of CA glue. Weds night I sanded one of the feet. That also took about 2 hours. Maybe today I'll sand the other foot and be done with that pain in the butt.

I've got a couple of cans of primer (Rustoleum light grey) and 1 can of aluminum (Rustoleum metallic finish) to try out on some of these things, just worried that my filling and sanding hasn't been up to par.

On Monday I ordered a set of Dan Baker's foot motor holder templates, and on Tuesday I called a local metal shop and got a price of $26 for a 24" x 24" .080 sheet of aluminum (which I have yet to go pick up). Since I had the templates shipped to the office and I'm going out of town Sunday til Thursday, it'll be next weekend before I have the templates in hand.

Also the charger for my Remote will show up next week, as will the Scorpion XL for my foot motors. Can't wait to try putting that stuff together. I've already put the dome motor harware together and it works :D Now if only the 300mm domes hadn't been delayed by 3 months, I could show you R2's head turning...