Day 64 - Little bit of dome, little bit of gun

I've been fighting some procrastination lately, mainly because two video games I've been looking forward to were released, and I've been playing them instead of working on Rainier.  But, today, I changed that!

I spent a great deal of time today sanding down the dome plug to clearly expose the streaks and pits I will need to fill before varnishing it with polyurethane.  I attacked it aggressively with 80 grit sandpaper, then 120 grit, then switched to a 220 grit pad on my orbital sander.

Although I made sure to take a very light approach with the orbital sander—since I didn't want to compromise the symmetrical curve of the sphere—I wound up making the chamfered edge a little less defined.  I'll need to go back over those parts by hand and see if I can get some sharpness back on that.

Afterward, I took a 300 grit sanding sponge and went over it all again, giving it a nice polish.  Once I fill in the pockmarks and streaks, I'll sand those down and do a final wet sanding with 1000 grit paper.

After my arms started to feel like they were about to fall off from all the sanding, I switched things up and started to work on getting holes cut into one of the steel gazing globes for the gun.

I began by masking off the part that I wanted the hole, placed the gun's tube against it, and traced around it with a pen to make a circle.  Then I drilled a series of small holes on the inside of the circle.

I then used my Dremel tool to cut the resulting small bits of metal between the holes, and finally sand/ground the jagged edges with the Dremel using (probably incorrectly) a sanding drum mandrel.  It pretty much destroyed the sanding band, but did a remarkable job making a smooth hole in the globe.

I test fitted the tube, ground down the edges a little more, test fit the tube again, etc.  Eventually, the tube slipped right in.  Now I had to figure out there to cut the exit hole.

I turned the ball over, covered the other end with masking tape, and drilled a hole where I guessed the center of the tube would be if it were properly sticking out the other end.  To check to see how close to the correct location I was, I used a marker to make a center point on the end of a 1" wooden dowel (that I will be using for guide pegs later on for stack assembly).  I inserted the dowel into the globe and seated it against the globe's inner surface to see where the center mark lined up to the drill hole.  It was pretty close.

I used that mark on the dowel as a center point while I again traced around the gun tube.  I had to do trace the circle a couple of times to get it just right.  I then repeated the drilling and Dremeling process.  I slid the globe onto the tube, and now the gun is basically complete.

I'm going to grind down the hole nearest the gun base a little more, as there's a bit of an off-center gap where the base isn't touching the globe on one side.  It's barely noticeable, however.  I'll then use a hose clamp to secure the globe into place.  After that, I will just have to powder coat the globe black, but I'll do that when I get to the plunger arm in a while.

The latest stack shot is starting to look more and more menacing ...