Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Back Outer Skin


Trimmed out the back outer skin. Thank you to whomever set up the files. Initially I thought they had been laid out in reverse, then I realized that they were made to be trimmed on the back side. It only took a couple of knife slips to appreciate the importance of that strategy!

I hope to get the front out skin trimmed at lunch time, that is if my trimming finger can handle it!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Inner Skin Test Fit


Trimmed out the front and back inner skins and did a test fitting. Amazingly, everything seems to be lining up! I need to put some reinforcements on the sides under the shoulders to give the side seams something to glue onto. I am thinking that four 3mm sheets glued together would provide more than enough purchase. I also noticed that even though I am not going to have the arm boxes, I do need some support behind there. I must have missed that step on Dave's plans!

I anticipate that the outer skins will be much more time consuming to trim, but I am going to go slowly because I do not want to do this twice!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Ankles Aweigh!




I think I am just about done with all three ankles, hallelujah! While they were a time-consuming pain in the arse, I really feel a lot more comfortable with glueing, filling and sanding now. I can take this knowledge and use it to finish skinning the legs, which I have been avoiding.

The ankles definitely need some more smooth sanding before I prime them, but for now, I am moving on to greener pastures!


Skirt Progress


I fishished the main body of the skirt and now am working on putting on the angled pieces. I added more supports since I was having a tough time getting the end and side pieces to play nicely. I have yet to do any filling or sanding but it is coming along nicely.

I used my Dremel MultiMax with grinding and sanding pads to bevel the edges. That worked like a charm. I scored the bevel lines first and it made it very easy to see what needed more sanding/grinding. My thanks again to Mike Brainerd from Bosch for the tool!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Trade Show Booth Model




My droid-building skills came in handy this week at work when we got an unusual request. Our client wanted a scale model of their Vegas booth, with the capability to slide different graphic panels in and out of it. The booth is 40' long by 20' wide by 18' high. I built the model with a scale of 1/2" = 1' so my model is 20" long by 10" wide by 9" tall.

I bought some Evergreen styrene parts from Gary's Hobby Center here in town and was able to get a handle on how to build it. Unfortunately, Gary's did not have enough stock material and I wound up buying more online from Tower Hobby. They had a bewildering array of styrene tubes, panels, sheets, trusses, you name it! All reasonably priced as well. All said, the cost of materials was about $60.


The majority of the model was built with square tube styrene, with deep channel U-shaped pieces glued along side to create the track for the sliding graphic panels. I used Testor's liquid plastic cement along with Hobby Lobby's Extreme Power Thick super glue. Two days of work and one fairly substantial flesh wound from the X-acto and I was done!