Skins are here :)

Got my aluminum skin set. Really nice, these are. Two outer, two inner, front and back. Gonna take some serious prep to get 'em ready, but they will definitely do nicely.

(trying out the coin slots I printed. Fit nice.)

Painting and Printing

Got in to the Hammerspace this afternoon and managed to print out the Large Data Port:

That'll be at the top middle of the barrel once I get the fame and all that. The bit above gets glued to the top of the bit below (it's printed that way to avoid having to do support structure). It gets painted blue.

Speaking of paint, I picked up all the paints and things I'll need (I think) and started doing that while waiting on the print jobs:

Now, I've used the XTC-3D on the parts above. If you see some shininess then that's why. It seems to do rather well, but I'll have to see how it looks once painted.

Here you can see some of the parts that have been painted. This is a very good chrome paint (Valspar metallic). It gives a good look. You can see one of the shoulder hydraulics which I have also painted.
I'm going to see how to age the metallic finish on these parts, but they already don't look anything like the printed originals, so that's promising. More painting tomorrow.

First part

So it turns out that a lot of the parts can be 3-D printed. Unfortunately, my Buccaneer hasn't shown up at my door yet, s it's off to hammerspace I go. Hammerspace is a great maker space here in KC, with multiple printers, CNC machines, a full woodworking shop, the whole bit really. I re-upped my membership, got a quick tutorial on the new 3-D printing staiton, and created my first piece, viola:

This bit is called the "Coin Slot", for reasons which may occur to you.

Anyway, it's not much, but it's a start. Not bad for my first day at this. I'm going to come back each day of my vacation and try to do at least one other part until I run out of the stuff I can 3-D print. The CNC is unfortunately out of commission, so I'll have to wait on the legs. Bummer.