Finished building my front vents

I finished up my vents this weekend!!!

Here are the parts I started with.

A set of David Shaw vent surrounds (I think :)~):

And a set of waterset vent louvers. Waterset.us

I sanded the outside and the front ring of the vent to a nice brushed aluminum look. I like the sand blasted look for the inside of the vent surround.

Starting out with the bottom vent I tacked together the parts with CA glue and finished the job with some JBWeld.

A quick test fit of the bottom vent in the front bezel.

I used the same process for the top vent.

And here are a few beauty shots and then on to soldering my J.E.D.I displays.

SKINS!!!!!!!

I finally found a set of skins for my droid!!!
I also got a set of front vent surrounds.
Now we a cooking :)

My first parts run!

I am coordinating my first parts run on astromech.net. I am doing a run of Aluminum Battery Harnesses.

Did some work on my dome this weekend

I had some fit problems with my dome so I cut it in half so that the outer dome would slid down further on the inner dome.

On the top half I drew up and labeled my plates on the inner dome.

Outer dome on frame.

I used an adjustable hole saw to cut out the holoprojector hole.

A quick test fit after cutting out the first dome plate hole in the inner dome.

I used a funnel with 220 grit sandpaper taped to it to fine tune the holes.

A few shots of the top or the inner dome with all of the holes cut out.

Next I drilled out and countersunk the screw holes for the holoprojector.

A quick test fit with the outer dome plate in place.

The next step was to JBWeld the screws into the inner dome. I used a Q-tip to spread Vaseline on any parts that I did not want stuck together.

Once they were glued I grinded the heads flat to the dome.

In preparation for gluing the inner and outer domes together I used a small screwdriver to scratch up the inside of the outer dome and the outside of the inner dome.

I glued the inner and outer domes together with JBWeld.

I used about a half million clamps to hold the dome in place while the glue dried. I set the outer dome plate over the holoprojector and used it to make sure the inner and outer domes were all lined up.

Well on to the bottom half of the dome time permitting. :)

Got more parts!!!!

I got some more parts for R2 this week.

Computer Interface Arm

I picked up one of the Computer interface arms second hand from the Hypersonic run a while back. I have seen a lot of amazing parts since I started this project but this one takes the cake. Unbelievable workmanship!!!!

Now I just need to figure out how to mount the thing :)

Installing the dome drive

Well it is time to make the head spin :)
I did some looking for the standard dome motor that everyone was using on there droids (Pittman 12v GM9413-2) but it seems that they do not make that model anymore. So I went with a slightly different (but still produced)Pittman 6 to 24Vdc GM9236C460 .

The motor bolts right in to the Comm8 drive motor mount that came with my frame. The only problem is that the drive wheel sits a little high on the Rockler bearing. I am thinking that the motor mount fits the standard motor perfect but the shaft on this replacement is slightly different. A quick trim with the Dremel and all was good.