Westbound & Down

I've been out of town in Albuquerque on business for a week, and it looks like the astromech.net site has been down for that long too. I received shoulder buttons while away.

Looked at some sandpaper to start prepping the dome the other day. I found 800, 1000 & 2000 grit in the Walmart auto department. I'm a little under the weather & have a busy week ahead, so it'll probably be awhile before I start on that task.

Since the main builder site is down, I perused the yahoo groups page last night. I'm not a fan of the site as a forum - its extremely unorganized in that regard. But I did actually stumble upon David Shaw's parts website. Looks like a few more parts are getting ordered soon.

Dome Dome Dome Doh Da Dome Doh Da Dome

Dome is here. These things are very cool. I see a lot of work in my future just on these pieces alone. Thankfully I didn't have to wait for a new run, and bought this Dome off Oscar. He had already removed all the panels from the outer Dome, Drilled out the holes for the 3 Holoprojectors and mounted the plastic ring in the Inner dome. Other than that its all up to me.

Here it is siting loosely on my Com8 frame. Now it really looks like Artoo. Although it also looks a little like a bomb casing. Hope no one reports me to Homeland Security.

Lights...

First electronics have arrived. I went with PSI leds from Mike Velcheck. I liked that his had multiple leds with 4 different operating modes, specifically the fade between colors. There is a  cheaper route of 1 of each color that blink, but I just think these look better. Wish I had some electronics, or a battery at least to see them in action *(Tested them with a 9 volt, holy crap they are bright).

Also got my mini Artoo. Pretty cool little toy that is fairly detailed. The center foot doesn't stay locked in the out position, but oh well its just going to sit on my desk as inspiration.

Also got home in time to see the mailman driving down the road and deliver my dome. Good thing since it was insured and needed a signature. I didn't want to wait any longer on this bad boy. Haven't cracked the box yet, but will shortly. Pics to come.

That's no moon

My first Junkyard parts - a full set of Half Moon Details. Luckily the post office didn't loose them in the last week due to the blizzard. They are already painted white, but one is scratched up a bit. I'll probably strip and sand them down to repaint when the time comes.

Lunchie Munchie

This isn't build related, but still has some R2 coolness. I had my eye on this lunchbox for awhile. I noticed the price had dropped last week so I pulled the trigger. It'll probably just be a show off shelf item, or one day may be a mobile tool box for my real R2-D2. I also bought what is billed as a "fully posable" 6 in Artoo action figure. I'll post a pic when it comes in. More importantly, I bought a dome on Saturday! Posting a want add on the forums paid off. It may even be here by the end of the week, weather permitting.

Calgon, take me away!

Snowmaggedon 2011 hit today. There is a drift over 3 feet tall on my front porch.

I spent the afternoon prepping the Com8B frame for assembly. As recommended, I washed each piece with soap and Comet. I then let the pieces dry for a couple hours and proceeded to sand all but the 3 large rings with 600 grit sandpaper. The instructions recommend 150, but all I had on hand was super fine 600. After sanding I rinsed each piece again, then just for good measure I crammed everything into the dishwasher and ran it on the cold water setting. I took the each piece out and laid them on towels to dry for another couple hours. All the grit and grime was gone and each piece was silky smooth.

Next I spent a few hours on the floor assembling the frame. It went together quite easily and I only messed up once on the magnets and their attachment bars. I didn't put the washer between the magnets and bars and had to unscrew all 6 to do them over. Not too shabby. Too bad I don't have the screws needed to attach the Rockler bearing. I don't think a trip to Lowe's is happening anytime soon thanks to today's onslaught of snow. But at least I have an assembled frame to look at now!

Here's the snow looking out my front window. You can't tell where the yards end and the street begins!