Stressed

 I am very stressed at the Moment. Or should i better say the last weeks?

I am doing the Bodywork on a badly damaged and rusty 66 Beetle convertible. 

 This is so time consuming...

A complete week until now restoring a Chassis and now i am doing the Body...

This week was Part of my vacation.

Hope to get done more the next days on it.

And in between some more R2 parts building.

But for today enough is enough!

Last night only two hours of sleep, today 11 hours of hard Work.

That cannot Work good for a longer time...

Periscope

 I got this 3d printed periscope Kit from Manuel from Spain. He had an outer Ali Dome i got from him too.

 

Doesn't look that bad... only minor work to get it shiny. Plus some electronics...

Waiting for Godot

i spend my entire vacation this week to work on a volkswagen beetle convertible bodyshell and the chassis of one of my very good customers. 

so i have no time for any welding work on my r2 parts.

so more news next week. 

stay tuned...

Interior

 The Dome interior build could continue.

I got some Ali Sheets, an inox dish, some crap parts, platines...

 

Some more vinyls

 I found some time to add some more vinyls to the acrylic dome.

And the crap Ali parts i got from the Metal Shop were perfect for the first part that i built today.

To get the same height as the 300 mm Ali Dome, i had to built a ring element for the acrylic dome.

After grinding the welding seam, i put a wooden ring into it. Fits perfect!!

Here it is together with the added vinyls:

Ali ring element

I got some trash Ali sheets from my buddy at the metal shop rounded and welded a stripe to a ring.

Then i grinded down the welding seam.

First vinyls

Okay, the dome needs some color. My decision went for melon yellow, a RAL color.

Here are the first four vinyl decals added to the Dome:

When you look from the top, then you will recognize the radiation sign...funny thing.

Ring element

To get the correct height in the end, i will weld an Ali ring element that is based under the acrylic dome.

I will use the original dimensions used for the Ali ring of the 300 mm dome. But the secret is in the
height of it.

This outer Ring will be higher and will have a conic ratio. This has to be done, because the ring itself is smaller in diameter. 463 to 450 mm.

The right height

The big problem; the height of the dome.

A missing 3,5 cm at least.

So i had to cheat a little bit. The decals dimensions must be changed. Some millimeters here, some there...

Here i masked the complete dome from the outside and cut off the ring with an airsaw afterwards.

 

 

 

 

R3 Dome

I thought i might start the build of the transparent dome in the same time as the imperial droid dome.

 

Design

 Which Design shall i use? 

Maybe a mixture of both?

Bondo

 I worked on the cracked areas, after having sanded everything on the dome's outside.

With a pneumatic machine and a rotating sanding paper Tool i enlarged the too smal holes for the HP's and the Front and rear lights. Here the enlarged areas from all three HP's:

Then i added some bondo to the small Cracks and holes.

 

Horseshoes

because these parts aren´t available at the moment, i thought to initiate a small series for 5 droids.

pic will follow

of course in a weight reduced version ;)

Solid Ali outer ankles

will i ever use them?

i don´t think so. better give them to another builder in need...

Ali battery boxes for Franky

another set of ali battery boxes for one of franky´s droids must be build.

let me see, if there are any remaining sheets on stock...

Another Ali Center Foot

i just built another ali center foot.

it is almost ready, only the lower areas on the corners have to be welded and grinded.

pic will follow

Odissey

A real odissey. The package from.my buddy Frank made a lot of kilometers to get to me...twice.

His first sending arrived somewhere in my hometown in some corner of an unknown postoffice, no one knew where it was, so that it was sent back to him days later (obviously it must have been found somewhere). 

The second attempt was a success. Today it arrived in a bigger box, because he sent a part of an Ali leg to me too.

And here are the parts i got from him; some very nice octagon ports:

Another Ali Center foot

The Shop is quick! 

Yesterday i ordered another set of lasercut sheets for a 1 mm Alu Center foot.

This morning i could already pick them up...

 

 

More sheets

...or almost daily visits at my local lasershop.

today i picked up another batch of outer ali feet sheets. 

and i ordered another batch of ali center foot sheets.

Second Version

 The second Version of the Ali skirt is welded now...

Megalightweight

this is the pronounciation for my newest creation of feet. 

not even 450 gr for a center foot in ali...

Return of the...

...package, that my buddy frank sent me some weeks ago.

there was a lot of trouble around this little package with the octagon ports in it...

now they returned to sender...so frank will try a second attempt to get them sent to me...