I’d posted a few weeks ago that I had a problem with the bolts on the Knurled Hose Fittings (KHF) hitting the drive wheel in the foot. Well I finally got around to cutting down the nuts and at the same time making some small nuts for the battery boxes.

For the feet I simply cut the nuts in half and filed them down. Here’s a before and after shot

At first I tried to cut the nuts with a hand saw, but it was slow going so I switched to the dremel

Here they are attached to the foot with the expandable rubber plugs which hold the hose in place

I also had to adjust the holes in the feet to get the foot strip to line up properly. I just used a hand file to remove some material

For the battery boxes I had to grind down the nuts to fit into the tight space.

Nice and snug fit

[edit 12-03-07 – see the following post about the failed rubber plugs on the KHF)

Last week I finally got around to cutting out the skin panels and tackling the rear door. After I’d figured out the right tool for the job, removing the panel was a breeze and clean up was quick and easy.

Next up was the rear door. The outer skins already have it partially precut, but the inner skin is solid and it’s up to the individual to decide if they want to add a door or not.

I really wanted a rear access panel/door to make it easier to maintain things, but I’d been dreading cutting but it had to be done. The plan is to have a totally removable door fixed with magnets.

I started off by fixing the outer and inner skins together, outer skin door panel, and marked out where the back panel sits on the inner. I then drew a line just inside that by about 1/8″.

It’s probably worth noting that the only panel I removed from the inner skin was the two long doors. I wanted to keep the skin as ridged as possible, and if I’d removed any more sections before cutting it would have been very flex and prone to bending while cutting.

I then clamped on a scrap piece of aluminum from one of the front door panels and used it to guide the dremel.

Here it is after cutting – not bad and pretty straight.

I did the same to the top edge and the other side

Here’s the door cut out and shown with the outer skin

I cleaned up all the edges with a file and I was done.

I also cut out some extra space on the inner skins for the octagon ports and power couplers to help them sit flush with the outer skin.

I have two different versions of the octagon ports, the old tacked box version and another set from Michael McMaster. To be honest I really like the newer version from Michael but it requires a lot more work on the frame to get it to fit, so I decided to use the older version.

I started painting some more parts last week, including the feet, ankles and boxes. I also stripped down the drive system and decided to give it the once over too.

Base coat was just Rustolum gray primer. Plan is to do at least two coats of undercoat followed by 3 coats of the Rustolum Satin white.

Here’s the inner drive system supports all finished. I’m sure they’ll get all scratched up in no time, but I wanted to protect them the best I could.

I also masked off some parts today ready for more priming tomorrow. I used the latex rubber trick to get into those hard to tape spots.

I used a combination of a small pointed file and Q-tip to remove any excess latex. It came off pretty easy. What seem to work was to wait a few minutes for it to start to set, and then just pick at it with the file and the latex would just peel away at the edge. For larger blob on the surface I just used the Q-tip.

It works so well I decided to use it on some others parts that I could have just used tape on, like the shoulder recesses, but thought it quicker to use the latex instead. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow if I over did it.

Here’s the recess where under shoulder detail goes right before I painted in the latex on the sides.

With a bit of luck I’ll get to painting things white in a day or so.

More photos in the gallery.

Over the weekend I’d tried to mark out where the ribs/strips would go on the skirt. It was late and I couldn’t figure it out and it looked all wrong. The next morning I called a few friends and they confirmed that this is a tricky step. I’d checked and rechecked the angles but it still didn’t look right. The outer ribs where too close together and the center one’s too far apart. I tried eye balling from reference photos (see first photo), but I still wasn’t happy.

Today I printed of the skirt plans full size and straight away I could see that I’d screwed up drawing out my own version of the plans/angles full size.

The moral of the story is check, recheck, check again – go away, sleep, and check again before bugging your friends 🙂

Over the holiday I’ll try and get the ribs drilled, tapped and secured to the skirt ready to painting next week.

I’ve been very busy the last few days and a bit tardy posting to the blog. However, I’ve made a lot of progress on the skins and legs, and will hopefully catch up with all the blog entries over the holiday weekend.

In the meantime here’s a quick tip for those of you cutting out your skins.

This may not be to everyone’s liking and my old my woodwork teacher would hate me for this, but I used a sharp wood chisel to punch out the pieces. I didn’t use a hammer or anything, I just had to push hard to break the tabs. Even on the super thin laser lines there was no marks left on the skin to speak of. I just lined up the chisel on the inside and pressed down on the little tabs.

I’d tried a bunch of different methods, from using a small saw blade on the wider cut-outs, to a Stanley knife on the thiner lines, I even tried a thin Dremel disc, but none worked as well or as quickly as the chisel. I found that the dremel would easily mark the skins or cut a wider undesirable lines and the knife blade would dull too quickly.

Do yourself a huge favor and throw away the bolts that come with most of the ankle detail parts. It’s virtually impossible to quickly assemble the ankle with them. I have small hands, but even I had a problem getting in there. Instead use hex head cap bolts in place of the Philip heads.

Like an idiot late one night I suffered through putting my ankles together before C4 with the original bolts. I even bought one of those fancy right angled screwdrivers – it did the job but it’s still incredible frustrating to use. It’s funny how sometimes you’re so close to a problem that you’ll go down the totally wrong and longer path for a solution. In this case the right bolts and a small wrench did the job so much better.

I’ve also swapped out a bunch of bolts that came with the JAG drive system. The originals work fine, but again it’s hard to get into the tight space to adjust things.

I finally finished drilling the holes for the Under Shoulder Detail after procrastinating for a while.

When I ordered the parts there were two options, short and stubby for surface mounting or long to extend into the leg. I opted for the longer version thinking they’d be more secure. What’s strange now is I was convinced at the time that the uber ILM droid was also made this way, but now looking back at my reference photos I can’t see any of the screen used droids this way. oh! well. Here’s the real ILM droid –

[Edit – I knew I wasn’t going crazy here’s a photo of the Magic of Myth R2 with drilled holes]

The job is pretty simple given the right tools. I’d originally tried to quickly Dremel out the holes right before C4, but realized it wasn’t the right tool for the job so I gave up. Someone told me to get a ‘rats’ tail file and they were right, it make quick work of making the hole the right size after the initial hole.

Marked and center punch ready for drilling

Then enlarge the holes using the ‘rats tail’

I think if I had to do this again I’d get the stubby variant 🙂

Next I need to decide if I’m going to just silicon them in place or tap/drill the back side of the barrel to secure it to the leg.

I forgot to blog this back in September, but here it is now for your perusal.

Check it out here  or to obtain a print copy see the official R2 Builders website. Back issues 1 and 2 are also available.