Some painting

So now that the dome is done, it's nice to rest a little. Mostly I'm just working on paint and prep:

The four main bits of the battery box clips

The ankle wedges

The ankle details (I did paint them earlier, but only recently noticed the blue tips)

printprintprint sandsandsand paintpaintpaint

So as I said yesterday, the ankle wedges taper to a top. Here you can see they came out nice:

Unfortunately, printing something like that meant I didn't notice another goofed up setting on the printer. When I tried to print the left-side ankle details, the "roof"--that is, the solid top layer--wasn't printing at all, even though the support material was getting printed. Worse, I started it before I went for my volunteer shift and by the time I got back, it was 96% done so that was a waste of filament. Anyway, fixed the setting and reprinted. As you can see, they came out properly this time:

So these get painted silver, but I had been feeling the chrome-y look the Valspar had been giving me was a little too shiny. Then I remembered that applying clear coat to the dome had made it look rather dull. I tried it again, and lo and behold, it gave me the look I was wanting: clean and metallic but not overly shiny. Very close to aluminum, in fact. In the picture below, the model on the left is just 2 coats of Valspar. On the right, same plus two coats of Crystal Clear. Hopefully you can see the difference.

Anyway, had another go with the utility arms, which have been perpetually uncooperative. This time I tried a version that has been broken up into multiple pieces for ease of print. We'll see how that looks tomorrow, weather permitting.

Dome Paint Part III, The Saga Continues

So my first day back to work. Fortunately Friday is a work-at-home day for me, so that helps. Also I managed to get the first layer of paint on my inner dome after work, then the second coat a little later. Then I headed over to the makerspace to print some more parts, but unfortunately the weather turned yucky and so I went home before they finished.

Incidentally, if you've never seen a 3-D printer at work, I recommend you do so. Essentially, instead of a regular printer that prints a layer of ink onto a paper surface, these printers print a layer of melted plastic onto a special heated surface. The surface is warm enough for the plastic to stick, yet cool enough that it will solidify immediately. Then layer after layer is built up one on top of the other until you have the finished product.

Here's a picture of the ankle wedges printing. Note the square "honeycomb" inside each one. That provides support structure so that the model has some solidity and also gives it a framework to print the top across, if the model has one (these come to a point as I'll show you when I get the finished products from the shop, but most 3-D printed models do have a top). You can set the fill from 0 (completely hollow like the ankle cylinder holders from yesterday) to 100 (completely solid). I'm using 20, which is a good balance point that provides enough solidity and support to print a good top over it while still staying nice and lightweight.

Anyway, while I was out, I picked up some tinting paint at the auto body store to tint the radar eye lens I'm making form a pop bottle. First things first, time to check it out:

Clear bottom of the bottle for testing.

After about 3 coats: good tinging but not entirely uniform. Need to practice more.

The stuff in question. I go through more Rust-oleum products these days.

Anyway, that's pretty much been my day. The only other thing I did was a little touch up paint, as see here on the radar eye. Doesn't it look nice against the outer dome? I can't wait to bring all the pieces together:

Oh, and one more thing: they always say to create a notebook filled with all the hints and tips you want to use as part of your build. But I being a 21st century kinda gal, have instead collected them into a meta-document filled with all the links I found useful. Feel free to have a peek at them yourself (note, that some of them are links to private Yahoo! groups or the astromech.net forums, which are reserved for people actually wanting to build an R2).

My Helpful Links Collection