More Dome work and some of the frame

Well today was 'Let's get the shop messy' day. I finished trimming up the inner dome around the bottom and cut out the inner section of the dome ring. Now to figure out what to do with that part. Might hang it on the wall. :P The lower section of the ring needed to be trimmed as well to make the width 1" all around. By the time I'd finished doing all of that I had lots of little pieces of melted styrene all over me and the floor. Next on the to-do list was gluing up the 3 floral rings that I got from Michael's. They're about 1/4" thick and just a little too big to fit inside the inner dome. Once they dry I'll trim down the outer edge on the bandsaw so it fits snugly.  You can see they're about the same size as the nylon ring that is used with the aluminum dome. So for about $5 each it was a inexpensive alternative to use with the styrene dome.

 Since I was on a roll I decided to pull the frame pieces off the shelf and work on those. I had already rough cut them a few months ago so they needed trimming up on the bandsaw. Just need to router where they fit together and she'll have a body!

Progress with the dome

Well I've been busy this past week. I finished up sanding the inner and outer domes so they'd sit flush with each other then trimmed out the areas where hp's and lights will go. Primer went on next on all the little pieces and the outer dome. Then color to see how it would look. I used Tamiya Aluminum and Dupli-color Metal Specks Retro Red. Hard to see the red with this photo so I'll try to get a better one later.

The dome came out fairly well with a couple coats of light grey primer and 3 thin coats of red, letting each coat cure for about a day in between.

You can see the color better in this one with a flash. Smaller pieces aren't permanently attached just yet. I wanted to see how the overall color scheme looked. I need to go in with a fine brush around each edge with some grey paint so the inner dome doesn't stand out so much.. or maybe some black. Hmmm. Also need to remove the painter's tape covering where the radar eye will sit.

 I'm not really sure but I think I'm missing a panel here. I've gone through the box to look for it and nothing there. The area is flat enough though that I shouldn't have a problem cutting out another piece of styrene and adding it here. Also need to finish trimming the bottom edge and the dome plug. Whew, what a week.

Getting ready to build my first droid

Well its been a little over a year since I started collecting parts for a project that my husband and I have wanted to do for a while. Ever since he discovered there were Star Wars groups out there that actually had movie accurate costumes and the work they did for charity groups he's been hooked. The bug soon spread to myself to spend more time with him and once we both had our own costumes done we turned our eyes to what we could build next. Thus began our collecting pieces for our own droid and building an R4-P17. We wanted something a little different from the normal blue and white.. no offense to R2! And I wanted something not quite as expensive or hard to work with as metal. She'll have a wood frame and legs while the rest of her parts will be made from resin and styrene. So far we have the frame rough cut and started getting the dome sanded and painted. I'll post pics soon.