Alternative 'RED' Booster colour's 2021

March

Something that I have thought about over the years, was being able to do a colour change for the Leg Booster covers. It has been talked about over the years, including 'covers'. I had thought about and tried, applying vinyl stickers, but this isn't a two minute job to apply and there's the very slight potential to damage chipped paint. I didn't fancy making another set out of wood again lol and had even thought about trying my hand at casting and moulding, something for the future.....

I decided on 3D printing them as these can then be swapped for R5's blue Booster covers. As my Boosters are 'unique' lol, although made to the plans, they're location pegs are custom, so I decided to draw up a set of booster's that would fit.

For the first cover, that I drew up in CAD, I split the file into three sections for easy fitting on my Tevo 3D printer. I then mirrored them in CAD for the other side, so only having to draw up once.

I added some some tabs to help with glueing the sections together, but this wasn’t acceptable for me.

So for added (guaranteed) strength, I hot welded the pieces together using a soldering iron.

(The boosters are hollow, saving print time and filament).

After some filing and sanding, I applied wood filler to joins and low spots. Here I've started applying, whilst waiting for the other half's to print.

I printed off four location pins, which will be fitted to each half section as can be seen in the picture below.

April

The second booster was printed in only four parts this time (rather than six), one piece ran out of filament just at the end, but not to worry as it still fits together okay.

Wood filler applied after welding the lower parts of the booster on. Still need to apply location pins before joining the two sides together.

Grey primer applied over the filler primer. Whilst this was drying I got on with sorting out the location pins for the second Booster cover.

Here's the second Booster cover, test fitted onto the leg. The location pins were again, welded onto the Booster cover, top and bottom. One of the lower pins needed a bit more modification to be able to locate and this was then also be welded to the cover.

Second coats of filler primer applied to the second Booster cover.

Next up was grey primer to the second Booster cover.

And whilst that was drying...... I was able to spray a coat of red onto the first Booster cover.

Really pleased with this!

Once fully dried, I painted on the silver detail first coat.

Next up will be a clear coat before weathering.