Playing Ketchup Episode II: Like a Rolling Stone

I broke all the various body pieces apart in late November. I sanded the steel feet back down since the primer was heavily marred and had sharpie marks all over them. Then I bought a few packs of drop cloths that I was able to fashion a paint booth from by hanging them up in the garage. It did a pretty good job of keeping overspray off everything, and there was a lot.

I was able to get most everything primed before going on a week long cruise at the beginning of December. Then I commenced painting over a couple weeks after I returned. I had a lofty goal of getting everything painted and assembled before the end of the year. I didn't make it, but was not far off.

I still had to do a few things to the skins though. In between coats of paint on the legs and feet I fabricated a backer to the Utility Arm bay and some Kicker Panels for the bottom of the sides where the skins meet. These were both pretty easy to make with some aluminum sheeting and various things found at Lowe's. 

I initially tried to drill and tap the frame to attach the Utility Arm bay cover. After breaking one tap and a second drill bit that failed miserably, I decided on another route and epoxied some gutter flashing to a piece of aluminum that I cut and rolled to the correct size. The sheeting wraps around the frame and uses pre-drilled holes. Viola.

The Kicker Panels were made of the same aluminum sheeting cut to size and bent at a 90 degree angle in case anyone wants to get down and look up into the space they cap off. I found some steel panels and L-brackets at Lowe's. I combined them with some captive studs, epoxied it all together and came up with some very solid kick panels. They screw into the four holes that were already on each side of the Com-8 B frame. They don't budge at all and cost probably less than $10 a piece.

Next I needed to do a little work on the skins before painting them. For some reason the John Sherrell skins had never been updated. Can't imagine why /sarcasm. So you have to cut out the square that the Power Couplers go behind. A little measuring, marking and elbow grease with a dremel and file made fairly short work of the issue.

I needed to do the same thing for the back door panel, but was finally faced with the problem I made for myself awhile back. I had used shears to cut the back door out of the inner skins. The Inner Skin portion of the back door got pretty bent up in the process. Hindsight is always 20/20. I had bent it all back into place, but was never truly satisfied with how things came out. I even bought a second pair of skins just to fix the problem. But, I kept thinking about it, not wanting to use the extra skins unless it was a last resort.

Then I had what I think is a pretty good idea, including something that could be implemented into future skins. Lowe's sells a sheet of aluminum that is only a 1/4 inch wider than the back door. I picked one up and spent some time rolling it by hand, fitting it to the frame and rolling some more till I felt it was sufficiently matching the shape of R2's frame. Then I trimmed off the extra 1/4 inch and had a perfectly sized and rolled solid back door. After placing the outer skin portion over the new inner skin I marked the areas that needed to be cut out for the back Power Coupler and Coin Returns. Here's where I did something a little different. Instead of cutting out the entire rectangle of the coin returns, I only cut the area that protrudes into the skin. This way I'll have a much larger area to adhere the returns to the back door panel. I'm really satisfied with my solution to my own problem. It had upset me for some time, but in the end its a nice clean door, maybe even better than the original.

Finally I decided to use captive studs on the Power Couplers and Octagon Ports. So I drilled the appropriate holes in the Inner Skins for each piece. Having done this, I'm not sure I would do it again, especially on the Octagon Ports. They are engineered so that its extremely hard to get a wrench around the nut that holds them in place, and I even abandoned it on the bottom two screws. This also causes a big problem if you can't get them to suck into the skins. When you go to adhere the Outer and Inner skins together the studs will create gaps in the skins where you can't get them counter sunk. I will say I didn't have near as big an issue with the Power couplers. Things to remember for next time.