Playing Ketchup Episode III: Paint the Town White

During all the work I was doing on finalizing the skins for paint, I was actually painting the legs and feet. Once I had the skins ready to go I taped off the Inner Skins and painted them as well. It was a time consuming experience, and my perfectionist ideals didn't help. But I tried to chalk any chips or dings up to natural weathering.

One of the first roadblocks I came to during assembly was screwing the Center Ankle Cylinders to the Center Ankle. I apparently never tried to dry fit these before paint or I would have seen the issue. Its such a tight fit inside the ankle that its pretty much impossible to use a normal screw. After a few different attempts from advise on the forums, I came up with what worked best for me and my fingers. I used set screws placed into the cylinders first, and then screwed a nut onto the backside with a ratcheting wrench. It still wasn't easy, but I got there in the end.

Some of the easier portions of building came after. I sanded and cleaned up my foot strips and the feet area they cover before using a strong epoxy to adhere them in place.

I also painted my homemade Utility Arm bay back cover and screwed it on along with the Utility Arms and Large Data Port.

My R2 isn't based on any one particular movie, but the bits and pieces I like from each. One of those bits is the silver strip on the legs that matches the indent in the Rocket Booster Covers. My JAG version of the legs don't have this stripe CNC'd out like some other versions. I knew masking it off during painting was an option, but I was afraid that any chipping later would annoy the hell out of me. I happened to find some silver pinstripe tape in the auto department at Walmart. It's close enough to the exact size I needed that I went ahead and gave it a try. I placed the covers on the legs, marked them with a pencil and made a line all the way around with a ruler to help guide for a straight wrap around the legs. I overlapped the tape at a point where it would be underneath the covers. I'm really pleased with the result. You have to get very close to tell its pinstripe tape, and later weathering will help camouflage it even more.

I used VHB tale to adhere the skins together. It worked fairly well, but I did use some super glue in a few areas that the tape just didn't seem to work. It helped to close the gaps. I'm not sure if its because my VHB tape was a couple years old, but it did have several places that didn't adhere very well.

I'd recommend a whole lot of clamps for this too. I didn't manage to take any pics of my skins during the process, but its almost comical how many binder clips and various sized clamps I used. 

Next came getting all the various detail pieces attached to the skins. I ran into some issues with the Pocket Vents. Mine have wing tabs that are meant to help you attach them to the skins with tension alone. Problem was that they needed some heavy bending and filing to get them to fit into place. Because of my homemade Kick Panels I ended up using a dremel to put a pretty good curve into the on of the top tabs on each Pocket Vent. Just another unforeseen step in the assembly process.

I got far enough along in the assembly process to put the magnets on the back door. Clamping the door in place, I marked the inside and then used epoxy to adhere the magnets in place. Those things aren't called "Strong Earth Magnets" for nothing. It really sucks the door into place when you get it barely in position. Problem is the magnets are stronger than the epoxy and I've already had to re-adhere a few into place after they stayed on the frame magnets. I will probably have to end up using my stronger 3500 psi Gorilla Epoxy in the end.