Days 119 and 120 - Attaching eye pivot / attaching shoulders to skirt

Now that the painted eyestalk pivot was dry, I wanted to mount it into place.  I cut out a couple of rounded pieces from some 3/4" MDF, using my dome former for the arc.  I quickly placed them on the rotation plate and put the dome overtop, noting that it wasn't a flush fit because of the inner indentation of the dome grooves.  I then drilled out the spot where they touched the mounts.

Another thing I noticed was that the mounts wound up right where the upper cowl bolts would be placed.  So, after making a couple marks through the holes and onto the mounts underneath, I later took a saw and flattened the MDF (not pictured) so that the bolts would be unobstructed.

Next was to try and determine just how much of the pivot I wanted to be outside the dome, and how high it should sit.  There doesn't seem to be much in the way of measurements out there telling me what it is, so I just looked at several reference photos, and eyeballed it.  One thing I noticed, though, was that the pivot axle's center point was going to be very close to the surface of the dome interior ... so my original idea of using my spare 1" pipe, in effect, wasn't going to let the pivot poke out of the dome that far.

I decided to plug the 1" hole I had previously drilled with some 1" wooden dowel, with new, smaller holes drilled in.  You can see it here, and I made marks on the dome where it lined up with the center of that dowel (the lower mark was the more accurate one).  Again, all eyeball measurements.

Now it was time to drill the pivot holes, both in the dowel and in the mounts.  Then I sat the mounts back on the rotation plate to check and see how far the pivot jutted out.

Satisfied with that, I carefully put on the dome, the dome cowl, and slid the eyestalk on, to give that a good visual inspection. Everything looks good!

Carefully disassembling the eyestalk and removing it, and the cowl and dome, I duct taped the mounts in place so that I could flip the plate over and drill countersunk wood screw holes.  I had to cut a hole in the rotation plate to make room for the pivot (and threaded rot that will stick out the back)—otherwise it would sit too high and scrape against the top of the dome's pivot hole.

The following day was beautiful and sunny, so I worked outside most of the day.  I mixed up some PVA-water and brushed a few coats onto the rotation plates and mounts.

While that was drying, I decided I would add extra reinforcement to the plate mounts inside the dome (Bondo being the only thing attaching them) and use fiberglass tape and resin to lock them into place.  So I set to work doing that, remembering to use less catalyst in the sun, and pretty soon had that finished.  And only then did I remember that without the fiberglass, everything sat flush and even, and now I just made it all bumpy (and raised the overall dome a couple millimeters).  So I'm going to need to address that somehow later, either by sanding it down a bit, or strategically using washers as spacers to re-level the dome.

I also whipped up a bit of Bondo glazing putty and repaired a few more chips on the dome cowl, which will get sanded back a bit later.

The final major thing I did that was to attach the shoulders to the skirt.  This was a little acrobatic, as I had to climb inside the skirt, lean over the side and grab the shoulder section, and gently lower myself into the skirt, and set the shoulders on top.  Then I had to lean over and grab my drill and bring it inside, being careful not to drill holes in myself as I did it.

I had to drill with the bit facing upward because that was the only angle I could use to assure a 90° hole in both sections of plywood.  I used another bit of dowel (pre-drilled) to make sure that my drilled holes were going to be square.  I did this in four places.

I used threaded inserts (similar but smaller than the ones used in the fender) on the top of the skirt after boring out those holes with a bigger drill bit, and then spade-head thumbscrews with washers for the shoulder.  Now the shoulders are securely attached to the skirt, and the skirt is attached to the fender!

Now I just need to attach the neck rings to the shoulder, and I'll have everything attachable.  Again, I'll draw inspiration from AdamSt's diary, as I can't think of any other way (besides rare-earth magnets?) to firmly attach them from the outside.

Not pictured: I've sanded everything down with 180 and 320 grit.  I think it's just about ready to prime, just need to build a paint booth (or, ideally, find a garage made for that purpose).

Day 115 through 118 - Attaching the dome to the neck (and many other things)

I've been quiet, but I've been busy, trying to get Rainier all ready for Anglicon in June!  Any one of these tasks didn't really warrant a diary entry of their own—except for the dome leveling and attachment bit—but I worked on that whilst working on various other tasks, which you will discover below.

First, though, I want to talk about the dome stuff, as that's what I'm most proud of for this update!

So, in the previous update, I had shown how I sanded the bottom of the dome so that it would be a level reference for when I mounted it to the upper rotation plate.  I didn't want Rainier's head to be all cattywampus when he turns to stare balefully at a potential victim.

I clamped a few blocks to the neck rings in order to hold a pen stationary to the dome rim, making sure it was 8.5cm below the chamfer line.  I rotated the dome on the lazy suzan, dragging a straight line along the dome.  Then I took my calipers to measure the discrepancy.

I was skeptical of my findings shown in the photos, so I instead measured several spots from the chamfer line and adjusted the line (not pictured).  Then I took the Dremel tool and again rotated the dome while I held the tool stationary.  This resulted in a beautiful, straight cut then I then re-sanded in the same way as before.  The dome was level and ready for the upper rotation plate to be fitted!

To accomplish this, I took two spirit levels—one for the dome and one for the plate—and tweaked and bumped the plate until all the bubbled were centered.  Once done, I drew a reference line along the interior, and made sure the line was the same distance from the rim all around the dome (in my case, 53.5mm).

My next tasks was to decide what to use to mount the plate into the dome along this line.  I've seen some solutions use bent aluminum L brackets fiberglassed to the inner surface (I think that's mentioned in the Workshop Manual), but I ultimately settled on AdamSt's method using wooden block sections.

But that raised the question for me of how to cut a curved, angled line that matches both the curvature and angle of the dome's interior.  As I scratched my head, I idly looked around the garage, and my eyes fell on the old practice piece of MDF that I used when I was cutting my neck rings.  From this, I cut four pieces out using my jigsaw, and then belt-sanded the existing 45° angle a little closer to the angle of the dome interior.

I placed the upper rotation plate back in the dome and test-placed the four blocks within to make sure they weren't touching any of the inset details or dome grooves.  Ultimately, I decided to use just three of the four blocks I prepared, as I was able to place them the same distance from each other and not touch any uneven interior wall surfaces.  I temporarily duct-taped them to the other side of the plate to see if they needed to be flush against the plate arc, or if they needed to poke out a bit by a few millimeters.  The latter proved true.  I shone a light inside to verify their placement.

The next step was to use wood screws to secure the blocks to the plate.  Keeping the duct-tape in place, I drilled a screw hole into both the center of the block and through the plate.  I countersunk the hole on the side that would be against the lazy suzan so that the screw wouldn't interfere with the bearing rotation.  Because I was going to be using Bondo to adhere the blocks to the done interior, I taped some paper between the blocks and the rotation plate.

Whipping up some Bondo, I slathered the angled edge of the blocks.  I realized that it would be much easier to place the dome over the top of that while it was on the lazy suzan and neck section instead of aligning it to the inner line I drew.  And I could rotate the dome to see if there was anything askew, and adjust it before the Bondo set.  I let this set for a few hours while I was out of the house, and when I came back, unscrewed the plate from the blocks, and removed the paper, everything looks super fabulous.  I will later reinforce the blocks with fiberglass tape and resin.  Yay!  Level dome that attaches to the neck section!

(I took the opportunity to repair a few of the dome air pockets with the remaining Bondo.)

Although this was done on a different day, now would be a good time to bring up my Bondo-ing of the dome cowl.  Because of the combination of my weird linoleum cowl plug, my crinkly cowl mold, and air pockets that snuck into the fiberglassed finished product, the cowl needed a bit of Bondo repair to smooth everything out, especially the D-shaped sharp line at the very front.  I troweled and smudged some filler onto all those points, and then sanded them down later, using 60-, 80-, 120-, 320-, and finally 1,000-grit (wet) sandpaper.  I'm very pleased with how smooth everything is, and it should look really great once primed.

The final bit of Bondo news involved the top and bottom of the shoulder section, just so any plywood unevenness was filled up and sanded down.  I still have a bit of work left to do here, but I've got it pretty flat.  Might just need to apply a bit of glazing putty to fill in the Bondo holes.

I also assembled and glued together the plunger detailing, using a combination of JB Weld for the metal tube, and acrylic cement for the acrylic and plastic bits.  Afterward, I sanded some of the sharp edges down to smooth it out.

Next, I decided I wanted to prime and paint the plunger detail, the eyestalk pivot, a bit of the eyestalk tube, and the front and back section of the eye.  All these were to be black, so I decided to do them all at once.  Taking some advice from ChristmasDalek, I alternated priming layers as grey, white, and grey again, using Rust-Oleum spray paint.  This also helped to fill in a few of the gaps in the plastic.

Once all that was dry, I sprayed a few coats of black Rust-Oleum onto all the parts and let them dry.  To prevent paint from entering the back eye piece, I put in a circular cut of wood, sitting on top of the spray can lid.

Once dry, I test-assembled everything, and was very pleased with the final result.  I will be adding a few layers of satin clear-coat to protect these parts.  I can't wait to next mount the eye into the newly-attached dome!

Finally, I also messed around a means to make my dome light LEDs look more like actual NSD bulbs.  I Dremeled a hole into a ping pong ball, snipped a few cuts all around it to segment it a bit, and then fitted the ball over the LED bulb.  Then I took some clear silicone bathroom caulking to seal it in place, and hung it upside-down to cure.  The bulb only produces 60 lumens of output, and so its heat is negligible; I'm not worried about damaging the caulk, bulb, or lens casing.

So, there you have it!  A nice huge update to let you all know that I haven't fallen off the map!

Day 110 through 114 - Aluminum light cages, dome rotation, skirt/fender attachment

There's been a large span of time where I've done various bits (and even longer spans of time where I've done nothing at all due to weather and video games), but I estimate there's been about five cumulative days of building that I've done here and there.  Time to document it!

I liked the colors that AdamSt decided upon using on his NSD, but tracking down spray cans in the States was proving difficult.  I discovered a place in town (called Wesco) that could mix Chevrolet Olympic Gold (hemis, slats, gunbox details, 1 pint) and Ford Aztec Gold (main body color, 1 quart) for use in a paint gun.  I also got the corresponding clear coat.

These are PPG acrylic urethane paints, and although I got the less expensive Omni system, it was still pricey.  These are to be used with a compatible Omni epoxy primer.  This is a two-part catalyzed primer, but the catalyst does not contain isocyanates, and cartridge breathing filters are described as an acceptable breathing apparatus.  I just need to see if it can go over bare plywood/MDF, or if I need to pre-prime it.  I know, I know, test it out.  I will.  Once I build a paint booth.

Here are the codes that I gave Wesco, for everyone's reference:

1997 Ford Aztec Gold
PaintRef.com link (Note: Both the gold [5230] and the "tangerine-ish" [5571] versions; I opted for the gold version)
Ford Code: M6819
PPG: 5230
Dupont: B9704

1969 Chevrolet Olympic Gold
PaintRef.com link (Note: Also known as "Trumpet", "Shalimar", "Topaz", or "Antique")
GM Code: WA3922
PPG: 2082
Dupont: 5010L, 5010A, 5010D
Acme Rogers: 5562
Martin Semour: 4418
Sherwin Williams: L11-N2882

I should show off my spanking new aluminum light cages made by gregg.nowling, which replace the laser-cut acrylic ones I had made.  Ever since I bought the first bit of aluminum for Rainier's gun, I'd wanted as many of the metal-looking parts to actually be metal, especially the light cages.  (My only fear is that, if ever the dome comes crashing to the floor, the weak point is now the dome itself rather than my cemented acrylic light cages which would have shattered on impact, potentially mitigating dome damage. The solution: don't crash the Dalek!)

Next up, I installed the bearing ring that Gregg pointed me to.  It had countersunk mounting points for attaching it to one side, but not the other.  I took some masking tape and covered all the exposed areas where the bearings reside to protect them from wood and metal shards, and then I measured the center position on the bottom rotation plate.  Clamping that in place, I hand-drilled through the bearing ring holes into the MDF plate.

On the other side of the of the ring, there were six plastic spacer nibs inserted into holes that were only half as deep as the ring height.  In order to mount the ring to the upper dome rotation plate, I would need to drill a few of them out completely.  I wanted to take advantage of those plastic nibs, though (they would provide space above and below the bearing ring for both the rotation plates), so I decided to only drill out every other hole for a total of three.  I took the ring to my drill press, clamped the ring into place, and quickly drilled out the remaining depth of the three holes.

I took the ring back to the neck bin, and secured it onto the lower rotation plate using the countersunk bolts, and placed the upper plate on top of that.  The center holes that were previously drilled in the plates (waaay back when I was making the neck rings) were the exact width of a screwdriver that I had laying around, so I poked that into both holes to align the plates together.  Flipping the whole thing upside-down, I drew a circle on the underside of the top plate.  Then I detached everything, clamped the bearing ring to just the top plate (lining it up on the circle I drew), and drilled the upper bolt holes.

The next step for me was to trim the circumference of the upper plate so that the dome would sit on it at the correct distance from the neck rings.  This is done by routing a few millimeters off the plate, sitting the dome on top of it, and measuring the distance from the bottom of the dome to the bottom of the upper neck ring.  (In the plans, that distance is 6.7cm.)  To make sure that it's 6.7cm in any given spot, I needed to sand the bottom of the dome so that its edge was uniform and level.

I approached this by taking 40-grit sandpaper, snapping each sheet in half, and carpet gluing them to a flat board.  I used the board that I used for the dome plug, scraping off the remaining styrofoam.  Then I put the dome on the sandpaper, running it in circles until it was a bit more uniform of an edge.  (In the picture, I still had the old acrylic light cages attached.)

The way the bearing ring is attached is with the countersunk bolts pointing down and going through the bottom plate, secured with nuts.  Just before doing that, I placed bolts pointing upward through the other ring's holes (that I drilled out earlier), and secured those with nuts, too.  I bought a fancy adjustable circle jig that let me make small adjustments, and went around the circumference several times.  Each time I finished trimming off a few more millimeters of MDF, I put the top plate on through the three upward-pointing bolts, and put the dome on top of that to see if I was getting close to the 6.7cm measurement.  I eventually got it to 7cm, and that was close enough for me.

Next steps are to take a stationary pen and draw a line around the rim of the dome while it's rotating on the bearings so that I can finally get that uniform line to dremel off and re-sand. Then, I'll cut some access holes into the rotation plates, seal it all down with PVA water, and make mounting points for attaching the upper plate into the dome interior.

Onto fender/skirt attachment:  I went a little crazy with bolts sticking through the fender top when I attached the metal frame and wheels, so in order to sit the skirt on it, I needed to cut a bunch of holes where those bolts and nuts poked through.  Measuring all that out was boring, and a chore, and I will totally not design it that way next time.  I won't bore you with further details.  The blue circles in the first pic indicate two additional holes that I drilled for large socket head screws with plastic caps attached for hand-turning.  (There's a third one in the front of the skirt interior.)  In the fender, I have threaded inserts that the screws connects to.

And, as I suspected from a long time ago, the gap of the uneven skirt bottom is causing some issues.  I can only really get a happy medium by hand-tightening these screws, where the front of the skirt pokes up at about the same distance as the back if I tighten the socket head screws uniformly.  And, the alignment with the threaded inserts is a bit tricky.  Attaching these two things together at a con is not going to be a quick thing.

Finally, I found my wheelchair battery charger (it was inside my new and unused shop vac for some reason) and charged up the battery a bit.  I placed it inside, added a folding chair, and sat down.  I diddled a bit going forward and backward, checking how tight-fitting everything was and seeing if I needed to trim anything up.  So far, so good.

Day 109 - Some finishing touches

I spent some time adding felt to the gunbox holes to prepare them for installation of the exterminator gun and plunger arm.  I masked off the portions of the hole that were not chamfered, and sprayed a layer of carpet adhesive on the bevel.  To achieve uniformity on the adhesive, I took a sponge brush and spread it a little more evenly along the beveled edge.  Then I took one of the globes, wrapped an 8x10" rectangle of black felt around it, and pressed it firmly against the edge.  I let that set while I went to work on the dome light cages.

The only place where I saw to position the light cages I inferred from the NSD plans .pdf file.  It looked like the holes for the bulbs were smack in the middle of the 12cm distance between the top "D" groove on the dome and the dome chamfer line.  So going off that assumption, I measured the distance between those two places on my dome (which wound up being 11.5cm).  I also took a look at some reference photos from the episode "Dalek" which is what Rainier is mostly based on.  The scene with Rose's handprint on the Dalek dome shows how the cages are attached, with the two bolts running parallel to the chamfer line.  Based on these measurements and observations, I pencilled in a line.

I had practiced drilling holes into the edges of off-cut sheets of acrylic to make sure I wasn't going to shatter anything, and then marked the areas on the underside of the light cages where the bolt holes aligned with the Moflash lenses' bolt holes.  Then, very gently, I drilled in two 1/8" holes into both of the cages with the drill press.  I didn't shatter a thing, and they were perfectly lined up with the lenses!  Whew.

I marked corresponding holes into the lines I drew on the dome, and before long the cages were attached.

By this time, I figured that the felt on the gunboxes had set nicely.  And, while it had set, it wasn't a good bond, so I wound up ripping it off quite easily.  It was also pretty raggedly cut (I need new scissors).  I'll try another method later, but this time using felt strips and contact cement.

Felt or no felt, I turned my attention back to the interior appendage retention plates.  After a bit of sanding to remove the dried up bits of newspaper and PVA wash build-up, I test-fit everything.  I found that I needed to bore out the bolt holes on the back-most plate; otherwise, the fit was too tight and the plate would get stuck when trying to adjust it using the wingnuts.

First, I used some 3/4" drywall screws (to mitigate the MDF splitting) and attached the middle plate directly to the back of the gunboxes, remembering to pre-position the alignment bolts first so that they stuck out the back.  I had made pretty deep countersinks in these plates so that the screws would bite a nice distance into the gunboxes without going all the way through the MDF and poking out of the exterior (which would be bad).  I only managed to reach seven of the eight holes, but that's okay.  It's a nice fit.

Next, I positioned the plunger arm and gun (I had to do a bit of mental gymnastics to remember which hole got which appendage, since I was working on this with the shoulder section upside-down).  I added springs to the alignment bolts and slid the rear plates onto them.  Adding washers and wingnuts to the back of the bolts, I tightened the plate until it was snug around the globes.  I'll add the felt later to prevent scuffing, but in the meantime, everything is nice, snug, and now positionable!

I re-assembled the stack, and now I am just getting the shivers.  Rainier's personality is finally starting to shine through!

Day 107 and 108 - Dome work, eye, and plunger

This weekend was a pretty fruitful one, being able to get a good chunk of time dedicated to some detailed areas.

I finally attached the bottom rotation plate onto the neck section.  I evened out the distances of each of the eight struts by measuring the distance from the top of the strut to the top of the upper ring.  There were only millimeters of difference there, so I marked the length of the shortest one on each that were taller than it.  After sanding the rest down to that length, I measured the length of the diameter between each pair of struts.  If I recall correctly, it was something like 46cm and some change.  I took one of the smaller off-cut circles of 3/4" MDF from the initial ring creation (back on day 19; my goodness, time flies) and routed the edge down little by little to match that length.

I was trying to factor in eventual dome rotation mechanics while doing this.  Since my struts were already pretty tall, I decided to cut notches into the plate and attach it to the strut sides instead of directly to the top.  If the plate were attached too high, the added distance of the second plate—along with the diameter of the rotation wheels—would exceed the proper distance between the bottom of the dome and the upper ring.  To prove this to myself, I sat what will eventually be the top rotation plate (the largest of the off-cut ring circles on top, with some spacers representing the distance of the wheels/bearings.  Then I placed the dome on top.  Sure enough, I should be able to get the proper distance by just routing away the outer edge of the top plate, millimeter by millimeter, the way AdamSt did.

I'll cut the inner section of the plate out later once I figure out some other stuff.  For example, I'm not sure which method I want for electric dome rotation (there are so many options that come up when searching the forums).  This will determine which plate I mount the wheels, place the motor, etc.  I don't know what any of that looks like at this point.

Now that I had the cowl in place on the dome, I could start to measure out where to place the eye pivot slot.  I knew that I wasn't going to be exactly centered—but at least pretty close—so I needed to wait to make sure that when eventually fitted the eye pivot is clear of the hole edges, and that the eyestalk clears the sides of the cowl when being moved up and down.  After a combination of relative measurements and eyeballing, and eventually marked out where the slot should be cut.

Problem was, I initially only made it 10cm instead of 14cm, and was quite confused when it proved to be such a tight fit for the pivot.  But I managed to get a couple cool photos anyway before correcting it and cutting out the extra 4cm.

Next, I turned my attention finally attaching the bushings to the aluminum plunger tubes with epoxy.  I used a product called JB Weld, which seems to be a recommended brand.  I used their strongest bond, one that sets in like a day, rather than their quick-bond stuff.

I cleaned all the tubes with 1000 grit sandpaper and Brasso metal cleaner to get them nice and shiny.  I then took a series of photos to make sure that I assembled everything in the correct order before attaching the bushings with the epoxy, because once those are on, they are not coming off without a serious fight (and probably major damage).  The acrylic hose barely fit inside the rear outer tube bushing, so I roughed up the surface of the hose a bit with coarse sandpaper.  But I ran into another problem almost immediately: once I had pushed the coupler into the hose, it expanded the circumference of the hose a fair amount, making it impossible for the bushing to fit around it.  If I had the presence of mind, I would have simply slid the bushing on from the back end of the hose (duh!), but instead, I attached a sanding burr to my Dremel and whittled the hose wall down until the bushing could fit!  What a silly person, me.

I mixed some batches of epoxy, gobbed it onto both the bushing wall and the interior wall of the tubes, pounded everything into place with a rubber mallet, and set it all out to cure overnight.

The next day, the were all completely cured and looking very solid.  I attached the (incomplete) plunger to the front, and snapped a couple more pics of it extended and retracted via the acrylic hose.  Soon, I will add black felt to the gunbox hole chamfers and mount both the gun and the plunger arm with my gunbox mounts.

Since I was working with the aluminum tubing, I decided to take an off-cut of the 1" tube and make an axle for my eyestalk pivot.  On the pivot itself, I noticed that the two-part Gorilla glue attaching the plastic outer skin to the MDF disk is coming loose, so I may need to re-glue it.  Also, the two pieces of 1/2" MDF seem to have detached from each other.  If they fall apart completely, JB Weld might be the answer!  Anyway, I slid the tube into the pre-drilled center hole and made a 5/8" hole using the pivot hole itself as a guide.  Once done, I sanded out the new tube holes a bit so that the threaded lamp rod could easily pass through.  For now, it's temporarily mounted inside the dome just to keep it somewhere out of the way (and to make Rainier look terribly awesome at the same time.)

As the weekend was wrapping up, I finally got around to sanding all the excess ABS glue that had hardened around the seams of the eye section.  Sanding ABS plastic isn't all that different than sanding wood, but I sure hated losing that smooth shine.  Ah well, it will be all smooth again once primed and painted black.  And, now that it was sanded (and then smoothed a bit more with a finer grain), I added the twelve 2.5cm "lugs".  These were cut from Plastruct half-round styrene rods that I had previously ordered with all my other plastic parts.  I initially used Krazy glue to secure them into place, and then ran a bead of acrylic cement to really bond them into place.

Then, for my final detail, I drilled the three holes for the eye piece bolts.  There doesn't seem to be an "official" distance for those holes to be drilled from the rim of the eye, so I measured a length that didn't appear to be too fragile—1cm from the rim seemed fine.  I used a bit more JB Weld to also secure some nuts to the interior for the bolts to be threaded into.  When I got up the following morning, I made sure to take my pliers to remove the bolts form the semi-cured nuts lest they be permanently cemented together!  It seems like that solution worked really well, and I'm quite happy with the results.