Hinge Clean Up

In the final product, the hinge bases will be invisible. They're underneath the body of the tricorder. So it was time to putty up the hinges. Once again, I deployed the Bondo Squish technique outlined earlier. I could have simply globbed putty in there, and then filed it smooth. However, I find having a smooth surface to begin with not only a time saver, but it also usually ends up looking much better. And smoother.

In order to minimize the amount of putty that was bound to get gummed up in the hinges, I masked them off with blue painters tape.



Then I got to the 'squishin. I gobbed in putty, then used the same piece of styrene I had used to align the hinges to squish the stuff into place.



It turned out VERY nicely. Just a litle bit of sanding, and a tiny bit more putty, and this side will be done.



In retrospect, I probably should have sanded off the primer from the bottom surfaces, to give the putty something better to grip to. Not a big deal, but I'll remember for the next side.