Paint and Reinforcements

Before I slipped out of the garage for a few hours, I sprayed a coat of primer onto the parts I've been working on. I always recommend this as a great way to get a "state of the union" view of the parts you're working on. Primer will bring out all of the flaws that might be present in the piece.

Another good tip is to view the piece in different light. Sometimes, if you're always working under a single light source (like a bench light, for instance) you'll miss some problems. So ever now and again, hold the piece up, move outdoors, shine a flashlight on it. Whatever. Just gives you a different perspective on the piece.




I'm actually pretty happy at this point with how things are going, so it's time to keep moving forward.

One of the things I'm NOT happy with is the upper body. The strip that runs across the body, just below the main veiwscreen, is pretty thin. And flimsy. Just a tiny bit of pressure makes it bow in. And nobody likes that. To fix this, I decided to reinforce the back of this strip with a piece of styrene. This will actually kill two birds, as it will provide a more substantial resting place for the strip of ribbed styrene that will go in later.


I dug into my styrene stash, and found some stock that was thick enough to make a difference, but not so thick that it might block placement of LEDs later on. I spent some time cutting it to size, and then clearing out a space for the two LEDs that need to go in.

I employed an old trick I picked up while building my R2-D2, and used magnets to hold the pieces together while the epoxy cured.



Since I was dealing with epoxy, I took this opportunity to glue into place the magned that I had previously drilled out a hole for.




In hindsight, this was probably not the best location for the magnet. I could have just put it inside the door without having to drill anything out. I guess I just didn't think of it at the time. The instructions recommend this, so I guess it goes to show that you really should read the instructions!!!