We finally got some t-shirts made for the local builders

It’s funny, I’ve been working on the new astromech.net website and DroidWiki all week and today used it myself for the first time to look something up.

Sadly I came up blank, but I don’t think it’s the fault of the wiki, but our part naming standards. I don’t think the blue surround that goes around the front vent surrounds has an official name. It’s kinda weird calling it the surrounds surround, but that’s what it is 🙂

My droids skins are removable, and the vents are attached to the inner-frame somewhat permanently. Getting the skins on and off with the blue surround permanently attached to the skins would be tricky, so I decided to kept the blue piece separate and use some magnets to hold it in place. I’m sure I saw the idea on someone else’s website, so I can’t take credit for it.

I carefully marked the optimum spot and glued the magnets on with epoxy

Using some tin snips I put some thin steel and made little tabs that would attached to the skins and allow the magnets to hold on

I attached them to the skins using CA glue

Here you can see the tabs just poking around the vent

And the blue surround in place

It’s not a perfect solution, and I’m a little worried it may pull off to easy. The tabs are also made from pretty thin steel, so the magnets don’t have a lot to attract to. At some point I’ll probably go back and add some thicker steel behind each to help the magnets grip better.

I could trim the surround a little and glue it permanently to the skins, but getting the skins on is hard enough and I’m not sure I want to take too remove that much material and like the tight fit.