Dome

Lots of painting and cleaning to get the dome to this point.  I glued on the panels with JB Weld and several are hinged.  I also glued a hinge on the panel that will eventually be the periscope just so I would not lose or damage the panel.  Now time to work on some lighting.

More Dome Gluing....

Will this never end? - it seems our lot in life.  You go that way......

Glued in the bottom half of the inner dome and matched up to the upper half with refrence marks I drew.  After this picture I cleaned up a lot of the JB Weld while it was wet.

Dome Gluing

Time to glue the top inner dome esction to the outer dome.  Lots of JB Weld and every clamp I could find get the job done.  Found it was very important to mark the parts orientation well so everything fit properly.

R2-D2 Begins

R2-D2 Begins.  Starting with an R&J dome I marked some of the panels I wanted to open on the inner dome.  These were cut out using a dremel tool.

I decided to cut the inner dome into 2 parts in order to make it easier to fit and get all the parts aligned.

Finally the top part of the inner dome was wet sanded to improve the fit and clean up the edges of the openings I cut.  Amazing how much work this represents.