Sunday, March 6, 2011

Utility Arms

Another job in the seemingling edless stream of "small" things to do to get R2 looking good are the utility arms.  I plan on having these operational (at a later date) but for now will be happy just to get them painted and hung.  I had some aluminum arms I got a long time ago so I drilled and tapped a hole in the backside for a threaded stud then mounted a model airplave cantrol arm to it.  This will give me a place to attach my servo linkage.


This shot is of the full arms with "fingers" attached.



 



Thursday, March 3, 2011

Coin Returns

One of the projects I needed to do to get R2 looking good was to make the coin returns.  I took some scraps left over from all the panels I punched out of the skins and made 3 pieces with the correct dimensions.  I then took a "nibbler" tool I got at Harbor freight and punched out the square hole.  I was worried but the nibbler worked great!


Below are the 3 panels - one with the hole cutout.  I just cleaned up the hole with a file.


I got some very thinn sheet aluminum at the hobby store and cut out the back parts using a pair of scissors.  I bent these to shape and glued them together with good old JB Weld.


Here is the installed parts after wet sanding and then finishing with a scotchbrite pad.