Alternative 'RED' Boosters

Here’s the new ‘red’ Booster cover fitted on R5.

Just the ankle cylinder colours to change. These I think I'll just change by applying red vinyl.

And here's the link to the whole build/print process for them:

https://r5-d4astromechdroid.blogspot.com/2021/04/alternative-red-booster-colours-2021.html

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.

R4-D4 dome lid modification - part 1

 I know, I know, I’ve not finished the last two mini projects lol, but it helps me be busy whilst awaiting components.

 Been thinking about fitting the Life-form scanner into R4’s dome, as he doesn’t have any special features.

This tho requires that the lid needs an opening hatch/panel. Firstly I was thinking about making a new lid, either out of wood again or 3D printing one, but apart from being time consuming, I just wanted to get it done. Lol :D

So I’ve roughly marked the underside of the lid to check clearance and it looks like it would fit.

Next up is to cut out the red panel.

Not having a dremel anymore, I decided to utilise the drill with the old dremel attachment. This worked out ok lol. It cut through at an angle which actually might help with stopping the new lid from dropping down to far.

Pleased with how it came out. May need to reinforce the underside, but that’s just for my piece of mind. I applied some watered down PVA glue to soak into the cut edges. But they didn’t need much as the top already had a wash before it was painted years ago. So, on to the next stage, hinges.

R0-D4 Dome update 2020 (Part 2)

Sprayed up the neck ring with plastic-kote  white paint & left it to dry for a day or so. No pics of this but onto the next colour, Red.

Thankfully I still have the original wood neck ring, so that I could match up the painted stripes.

There are four quarters which have thicker vertical bands. These had a stripe of masking tape and the pin strips to prevent paint bleed.

Next came the top and bottom bands, again using the pin stripe tape width, with an additional single thickness vertical line at each centre of the quarters. As can be seen in above picture.

Then the fun bit, spraying with the red metallic’ish paint.

Looking good. I left this for about 20mins before starting the messy bit, removing the pin stripe tape.

I had made sure to corner crease the edges of the over lapping tape, but this isn’t the best way, cutting the tape is. But I didn’t want to damage the paint and it’s not critical. Weathering will cover up and also chipped paint too.

Once all the tape was off, one final picture before being left to fully dry.

Utility arm UPPER socket screen (Part 3)

 Test fitting of the panel identified that a few things needed tweaking.

• The utility arm wouldn’t close properly.
• The screen was still a bit tight.

So firstly, the utility arm was not closing properly. This I found was down to the pivot pin not having enough clearance below it. It was being restricted by the lower frame panel. Before fitting the socket screens, there was a bit more space. As the pivot pin had left a rub mark on the new paint, I could see where to make a recess with a 10mm diameter drill bit.

Next was the socket screen itself. I had to clean off over spray paint from the top and bottom faces & trim a bit more off the pivot arm end. This was stopping the screen from going back far enough, which was restricting the utility arm from closing fully.

Really pleased with how this is looking. Just need to weather the screen and finally fit it in place.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 3.7 - Re-spray Dome red

I thought I'd masked off enough to be able to spray the area needed, without leaving a spray edge. Well, I did and didn't......more tho I didn't manage this. To say I was annoyed, would be putting it mildly.....mainly as I'd only picked up one can, thinking it would be just enough to cover the area effected.

 Masked off areas that didn't need spraying

But this additional coat of paint also showed up the fact that the original layer wasn't consistent enough.

So I used some wire wool to gently rub away the paint line. This takes some of the metallic shine off, but wasn't course enough to remove actual paint.

Then it was re-masking off the entire dome....which took over an hour to do!
I also had to go back to the shop to pick up two cans (not falling for THAT mistake again) of metallic red.

Friday morning, dome back in the spay booth and I got to spraying up the WHOLE dome!

And once the masking tape and paper was removed....

I covered over the white panels and the red panels that weren't effected by the previous paint line (Above picture & below picture). I wanted to do this as well as these now have a slightly lighter red to them, which I like.

One of two bleed spots appeared after removing the masking tape...

but some light wire wool and these were gone.

So over the weekend, I'll re-apply the silver to the grooves and then clear coat the dome.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 3.6 - Silver band

• Sanded the primer and filler smooth.
• Then applied this second coat of primer/filler.

• More sanding, later that day.....in between I did this.

There was still some smoothing to be done to the 3D panels inside edges as, I thought, they were rubbing on the outside diameter of the bearing. Tho after much sanding/smoothing with the sanding barrel on the dremel. I took the location ring off and just sat the dome on the bearing/body.....turned the dome and no contact....? Then I noticed that one of the location pins was being obstructed by its location block. The block had been modified in the beginning, but I didn’t notice that when I had shortened the blocks, I hadn’t extended the clearance hole. Once I’d work the dremel magic on the wood block, everything fitted, no rubbing and smooth rotation. RESULT!

Back to the sanding. Feathering the edge of the primer, so that when I come to re-spray the neck join line isn’t visible. In the picture, the area which has been done is showing white. The orange distinctly shoes an edge on the right of picture.

Once I was happy with the edges etc, it was time to re-mask off the dome. And spray up with white.

I sprayed up the whole neck band. The reason for the white is that the lighter colour helps the metallic red shine more, in my opinion.

Once this had dried (next day) I re-re-masked off the neck so that I could spray the lower band silver. Tho the actual colour is Pewter, it is a more natural 'silver' than previous silver spray paints I've used.

 starting to spray up the ring.

And the reveal, below....

Am hoping to pickup red paint tonight so I can finish this off tomorrow. Then it will be a strip down of the holo & radar eye, ready to clear coat the paint work.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 3.1 - RED

Last week, I stripped down the dome of it's fitted components & started to spray up the dome, white.

Still have the lower ring to sort out etc. Plus colour scheme, which is actually my biggest issue lol.

Weekend, I lightly sanded the dome and then Monday in work, I gave it a second coat of white.

I drew up some colour ideas, but wasn't happy with them. Then I settled on a design that follows a standard'ish style. So, I started the masking off...

One thing I had forgotten was there are grooved panels above the Radar Eye's location. With everything going on, I'd completely forgotten to add these.....

So a quick operational procedure later and......

Two new grooves were in, PVA washed and edges sanded, ready for the morning.
I was working on the grooving and the masking off of the dome for about 3hrs! It was gone 1am when I finished up and went to bed.

Tuesday 12th.
This morning I set up in the works spray booth and got to spraying up the dome.
They only sell the metallic red in small tins.....good job I bought two!

Started spraying up.

Dome and lid sprayed, just waiting for it to dry,

I also sprayed up the two electronics panels in silver. I got them wet with spray which has helped with the blending of the 3D printed ridges.

Once dried these will get dirtied up with black etc.

So lunchtime I peeled off all the masking. Two spots I'd missed with covering, and one slight mist bleed. But am not to bothered at the moment as I can re-do this bit later.

 Radar Eye fitted back on.

'Electronics panel' fitted back on. View also of the lid.

I left one panel be red & included some random split pin strips, for R5 reference :)

Next up is silver groove details.

Metal for the neck ring arrived today from 'Metals4U', here in the UK. You can order strips cut to length, width & thickness etc.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 3.0

Finished off the last grooving to the curved panel.

Lightly sanded it and applied a PVA wash over it.

Next up was some silver detailing on the radar eye. I sprayed some into an empty can cap and then using a file paint brush, hand painted the slots on the eye.

Then I used the brush to 'dry brush' over some of the edges.
This helps create the chipped paint effect.

Still a work in progress as need to add darker colour's to add 'dirt' effect.

Next up was to position and glue into place the Radar lens. I used fiber glass resin, marked the position and fixed it in place. I then screwed it back onto the dome so that any resin would be shaped by the dome, before it dried and that would of meant more work.

As I'm not sure about the final colour scheme for the dome, I did decide that regardless, the dome will need a white coat of paint. So I started on the lid.

A few coats and wow, what a finish!
The waves in the reflection near the middle, is the extractor filter, not the surface finish lol