#4895066
Wow, lol at that! I'm really glad this thread has helped you. Make sure you give yourself a huge heaping of credit. Your pack looks amazing!

The race is on then huh? I'm shooting to have this done by Halloween at the latest. Got a lot going on right now.
#4897321
Got a littler bit of prep done for smoothing out all the pits and gaps before final assembly and primer time.

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I started by taking a few moments to see where I needed to fill and circled them with a pencil. Then I mixed up small batches of apoxie sculpt at a time so it wouldn't harden before I would be able to use it all. Then I shoved small pieces into the areas I mapped out. I used the edge an old gift card to smooth it out to cut down on the need for abraising.

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When removing the cyclotron to get to the ring spacer I needed to cut down the post/ tabs as they were hitting the synchronous spacer. While cutting some of the tabs, the downward force from the razor sheared some pieces off. Cleaned them up and glued them back on after cutting their tabs.

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Also filled in the bottom of the ppd.

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These pics should be self explanatory. They are the after shots after I applied the apoxie sculpt.


Stay tuned to this thread as there should be a lot of activity now that I've imposed a Halloween 2017 deadline on myself. Gulp!
Last edited by Batfly on September 10th, 2017, 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
#4897500
Got more done on Friday and Saturday. This post will be of only Friday's progress, and the next will be Saturday's.

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Here's a before and after of the EDA area. I originally had the idea of before and after shots for each piece as I cleaned up the gap filler, but then I thought it'd be redundant from the previous posts as it looks the same.

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I made a spacer out of some tape to hold the booster tubes/power cell level. Then I taped the power cell into place with aluminum duct tape. I got this stuff to hold together aero ports in subwoofer cabinets to make them adjustable instead of permanent. I've been finding so many uses for it. I love this aluminum tape!

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Then I realized I got a little ahead of myself. Removed the power cell and drilled holes along its edge.

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Then I re-leveled and taped it back on to transfer the hole positions.

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Drilled out the transferred holes and put screws into them. I'm going to use the screws as clamps as these are really small, tight spaces. There's a joke in there somewhere. [emoji14]

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I applied the weld on glue and placed the power cell on the screws. Before pressing the pieces together and tightening it down I taped the outside seem with masking tape. This is to prevent glue squishing out on the "show side".

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Tightened it all down and set aside to cure.

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Then I cleaned up some of the pieces till my fiancee got home from work (there's some news, I proposed August 2nd on our 4 year anniversary).

That's all for Friday.
Last edited by Batfly on September 10th, 2017, 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
#4897512
Ok, on to Saturday, August 26th's progress.

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I started by removing the masking tape around the power cell as I was afraid it didn't work. But it totally did! I was impressed. Look at it! The glorious cleanliness! Now I need to study reference shots to see if these surfaces need to be radius blended together, covering up this greatness hahaha.

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When I first started attaching greebles, I stripped the hole on the ion arm cap for the house barb. To remedy this I poured glue into the hole. Then I inserted the barb fitting, clamped it down, and set aside to cure.

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I grabbed the synchronous generator and cleaned up all its expoxie gap filler. Came out nice.

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Cleaned up a few spots on the crack gen and gun mount. Most notably where the two join together.

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Drilled some holes to clamp down the little chamfered shelf that sits under the hga. Does that little shelf thing even have a name?

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I used the red plexiglass that I'll be using for the cyclotron widows as a leveling surface, pressed the little shelf in place, and transferred the hole locations, BUT only on one side. The adjoining gun mount surface is slightly off level.

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I widened the holes for the screws to go through and drilled the first holes on the shelf on the one side I transferred them to. Then I screwed that side down.

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With that side secured in place I used the plexiglass leveling surface again, pressed the shelf up to it while pushing the gun mount up to the shelf and transferred the last two holes on that side. Then I drilled them out.

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Applied a liberal amount of glue and screwed it into place. For those with a keen eye, yes, I messed up the first outer hole on the second side and had to redo with another hole. I didn't use masking tape on the show side as I'll just be covering it with epoxy to blend the sides together.

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I wanted those curved details on the crack gen around the tube/hose area that makes it look less blocky. I mixed up some apoxie sculpt for this. I rolled short, thick tubes to put in the places to be worked. Then I took a scrap flat piece of styrene that fit on top as a level guide. I wetted both the styrene and my finger tip and pushed the expoxie into place. By wetted, I mean I just spit on them from time to time. Sounds gross but works perfect! Lol. I didn't worry to much about getting it perfect. I actually put more material than I intend to be there as I'll be abraising it down with joint killing scratchy paper.

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Blended the surfaces on the opposite side where the hose goes in. Used my pinky finger instead of index on this side for a smaller radius. Just made expoxie worms and squished them down. Spit on my finger a bunch as I smoothed it all out and made it even. Minimal clean up will be needed it looks like. :D

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By this time the glue on the chamfered shelf was cured a bit so I did the same there. Squished expoxie worms with a spitty finger.

That was all for Saturday's progress. Now that I'm caught up on posts, I can relax and start working on it today! Stay tuned fellow busters!
Last edited by Batfly on September 10th, 2017, 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
#4897574
Thanks VS! I should be posting Monday's work sometime today.
Last edited by Batfly on September 10th, 2017, 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
#4897578
Too kind TK! 31 pages according to tapatalk on the phone. Browsing on a computer is much nicer as, like you said, its only 11 pages so far. Lol. Yeah, I can't believe the log length and timeframe of this build lol.
#4897701
Holy work week Batman! I totally intended to update this thread as I worked on the pack not only on Monday, but Thursday and Friday as well. As usual I'll do a post for each day.

Monday, August 28th, 2017:
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I started by checking out how the rethreading of the ion arm cap went. Not so great! It was wobbly at best and I was able to just pull it out with little force. It did leave a neat little glue tube/post in the center though. So I drilled out the hole and shoved some apoxie sculpt in there. Will drill out and thread later.

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Next up on great shell unification campaign of 2017, I went after the cosmetic plating. I wanted it to fit a bit more flush so I found the area that was contacting first and worked it down.

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Cleaned up where it meets the synchronous plating. The screen used packs had it meet about a quarter inch up the plate, but in my idealized version, I wanted it to meet at the edge of that plate. First time using my orbital hand sander that I got recently on styrene. What a dream! Should have bought one of these years ago!

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Matches up nicely. I'll have to fill in that end and clean it up later.

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I taped it how I wanted it to line up and glued the exposed areas.

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After 10 minutes I removed the tape and glued the rest. I used several objects to weigh it down flat as it cured.

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Next I went after the crank box details. Spent 75 minutes on just the one area on the left. Love how it came out.

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Spent another 40 minutes on the right side. I think it came out well, but I really won't know until I hit it with primer.

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I flipped the pack over and globbed glue everywhere I could for added strength. Then I flipped it back over onto a sheet of wax paper so it'll cure as flush as possible. Added more weighty objects.

That finished up Monday's work.
twmedford23 liked this
#4897702
Thursday after work, I sat down at my desk to just look at the pack before posting Monday's progress. I spontaneously started working on it and forgot about posting, lol.

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Started by inspecting the cured cosmetic spacer. Happy with it except the area I trimmed where it meets up with the plate on the left side. I've noticed the glues tends to have shrinkage as it cures. This pulled the bottom edge of the cosmetic spacer towards the synchronous side wall. I'll probably see if I can remove some of the glue to get it to kick back out. Then hit it with some epoxie and clean up later. Not a big deal but it's bugging me.

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The other side is good but also needs some epoxie and clean up.

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Scraped up spots of the glue from yesterday so the cosmetic step can sit properly the way I built it.

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Glued that steppy guy on there and man it lines up wonderfully!

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After letting the step cure for a half hour I glued the EDA/power cell/booster tube assembly in place. Clamped down one side to ensure it was perpendicular with the synchronous and cyclotron. Not happy about the angled gap on the bottom, but it'll get epoxied over later.

Not a lot of work but a big step! On a day I didn't expect to work on it at all, can't complain. This pleases me. :)
#4897705
Friday, September 1st marks day 1 of a 4 day weekend. Oh yeah!


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Started again inspecting the previous day's work. There were a lot of gaps and I want this to be as strong as possible. So I taped up where I didn't want glue to seep all over the place and then flipped it all over.


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While face down, I splooged my glue all in its backside. Oh yea. I set it aside for it to think about what it just let me do, I'm mean, to cure.

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Went on to finish clean up of the thrower which I didn't photograph. Then moved onto making the brass barrel nub lock screw thingies.

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Had to remove the clipboard valve. Made pilot divots and drilled out the holes. Tapped the holes with longer screws than what I'm using for ease of use.

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Here's the parts I used. Screen used throwers had solid brass spacers and not separate washers, but I couldn't find small enough diameter brass tubing or rod. I think I actually prefer the busier look of the washers. We'll see if this is one of the things that'll drive be crazy or not later on. Doubt it.

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Finally made the screw holes for the trigger bar access panel. Drilled holes in the panel after making sure the screw heads would not exceed the edge. Transferred the hole positions to the trigger box. The I used a drill bit the diameter of the screw heads and made recess pits. Turned out beautifully.

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Drilled out the box holes by hand due to the tight spot, weird angle, and laziness lol.

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Test fit panel hole alignments then screwed it down. Look at that awesomeness! I feel like its an improvement on the movie packs. Switch install and maintenance will be a breeze. Super pleased.

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Then we ate dinner and went to an evening with Bruce Campbell where he put on a hilarious nerd trivia show and gave out free autographed copies of his new book! Was a great night.
#4897747
Saturday, didn't get much done as we had a lot of errands we ran and then plans in the evening. But I at least wanted to get something done. I want to work on it each day of this 4 day weekend.

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Started by scraping out the glue where the cosmetic spacer meets the synchronous plating. Then I cut some scrap styrene, gooped it up with glue, and clamped it in place. Sound do nicely.


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My booster tube welds, as good as I think they came out, have been bugging me for months. Every time I look at reference photos, the screen used tubes ARE welded, but heavily grinded down.

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Got out my scratchy sponge and scraped my boosters to look like the reference. I like it much better this way!

That's all I got done on Saturday.
#4897750
Sunday, the hand abuse continued! Had a hangover most of the day with a massive headache. Still got some progress done after a nap with ibuprofen though.

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Started by staring at reference shots like a psycho for a half hour. Then decided to round off the cosmetic step spacer corners. Subtle but looks nice.


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Again, starred at reference shots and traced out the filler tube placements. Tried to account for the epoxie that'll be in the joining corners. Twirled out their screw holes.


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Used more of the amazing and expensive aluminum tape. Have I mentioned I love this stuff? Transferred the screw hole positions to the first tube.


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Drilled out the transfers and tapped some threads in there.


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Did the same for the other filler tube except it had two surfaces to go through. Because of this I had to take extra effort to make sure the bit remained perpendicular to the surfaces so the holes lined up. I messed up on a hole but had plenty of space to make another.


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I widened out the screw holes and then attached the tubes.


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Here they are attached to the pack. You can also see the newly worn down booster tube welds from yesterday. It's very motivating seeing it all come together!
#4897829
Lol, I know, right?! Thanks.
twmedford23 liked this
#4897838
Ok, here is what I got done Monday, September 4th:

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Started small by adding two screws to the sides off the clipboard valve base. This levels it flush with the shell. The sides before were coming up about 1mm on either side. That just won't do!

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Then I had an apoxie sculpt worm flattening party! Took my time and alternated between using the pads of my fingers (my pinkies in particular) and the fingernails of said fingers. This let me get a pretty smooth and consistent result even before abrasive touching up. Lots of spit was used. No joke! :P*

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Next I decide to make a mounting point for the ppd. Cut some scrap styrene, threw some aluminum tape on it, put glue on its edges, and moved it into place. Then I placed the ppd in its spot and laid the tape flaps down. While pushing the ppd in place I pressed its mount surface up to it from the back of the pack. Held it like this for about 5 minutes to let it set some.


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Added a couple braces of scrap styrene before setting aside to cure.


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I eyeballed center of the gearbox crank and drilled and tapped it. Damn close to true center! Go me! [emoji1]

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Measured center of the upper gearbox section, no eyeballing here, and drilled it. Used some washers so it can spin without hitting the styrene. The threads are so tight that it doesn't come loose and I can adjust the resistance but tightening or loosening the screw. Pretty cool! Super happy with it.

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After about 20 dry fittings, I globbed on some glue and attached the gearbox and gunmount. Clamped it down as I forgot about my screw clamp method in the excitement of getting the last major section added to the pack. Look at that thing!

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Finished of by drilling out the holes on the framer ladder thingy.

Good mix of major and minor steps on this labor day.
#4897842
I meant to get more done yesterday (Tuesday September 5th) but passed out on the couch after work for two hours. Working at 6am will do that to ya! But I did manage to work on it a little after I woke up though.

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I carefully lined up the tube making sure everything was level and square and then just as carefully lined up the frame. I very gingerly put my fingers on two of the slats with one hand and then slowly pressed down. Making sure I didn't disturb its carefully laid position. I traced the frame holes to the tube while carefully holding the frame in place. Afterwards I hammered a masonry screw onto the tube to make pilot pits. Then drilled them out. Threaded the tube, widened the frame holes, and screwed the frame to the tube. Came out as good as I could have hoped for! Didn't get many pics of this process as at first I thought I was just messing around after waking up.

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You can see here the tube doesn't sit exactly flush on the hga angled surface. This would not do and I corrected it with what took way too much effort after an accidental nap! But it now sits super flush.

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I lined it back up and marked the top and bottom as guides.

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Then I connected the marks and drilled out two mount holes along it.

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Realigned the tube and taped it in place with my beloved aluminum tape. Stood the shell up and traced the holes onto the tube.

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Did the hammering of the mason screw again for pilot pits. If you look closely you can the top hole is slightly off to the left. I tried to re hammer a correct spot.

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I drilled and tapped the tube mount holes then widened the pack side holes.

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Screwed the tube and frame in place and damnit! That little pilot pit goof offset the thing by about 1 to 2 mm and made it rotate slightly. I also wonder if maybe it moved slightly while transferring mount hole locations. Either way, it needs to be fixed and it was getting late. So I stopped for the day before I rage stomped anything!
#4897877
Wednesday, September 6th, a day of corrections.


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I started by unscrewing the booster tube. I realigned it to my original markings and taped it in place. I made sure to put some tape on the sides to prevent wobbling/rolling this time. I looked from the back, and sure enough you can see it went askew. The holes don't line up. Must have moved when I transferred the hole markings yesterday.

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So, this time I drilled all new holes while the tube was still taped to the ega. I took my time and held it firmly while hand drilling.

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I tapped the tube, widened the screw holes, and screwed the tube down.

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Now that's what I'm talking! Lines up near perfect. Look at that matching angle joint. Put the frame on to check it, couldn't be happier! Still debating whether to take the effort to weather a curve into the back of the booster frame or not. Who knows. Not critical.

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Wrapped some shark foreskin paper around the ppd and wrecked my elbow correcting its mounting point. The ppd was previously leaning a little forward and to the right. Now it's all good. This also helped wear a slightly visible line that determines where it'll actually meet up with the ppd wall. I made two screw holes along this line.

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I taped it how I want it to be. For some reason I don't like the straight forward look. So I went with more of a Egon's pack placement. I widened the screw holes and tapped the ppd while holding it on to the ega.

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It looks great and idealized on the front, the side however has a gap and some unevenness. I'll tape some wax paper to the ppd, fill in the gap with expoxie, and wear it down flush and smooth after it cures and I remove the ppd.

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That's it for Wednesday! Might get some work done tonight, might not. About to take a nap. Waking up at 4am with 5 hours of sleep the last 3 days after going to bed supper late during the 4 day weekend has me jet lagged something fierce!

Stay tuned either way.
#4897885
I just went back and got caught up on your posts. This is an amazing build. Keep up the good work!
#4897891
Thanks Hammer! The end is in sight, but there's still so much left to do!
#4897906
Haha thanks. Yeah, it's a fun challenge to come up with ever new ways of not saying whay I won't say anymore in this thread. [emoji14]
#4897908
I was pretty convinced I wasn't going to get anything done yesterday, Thursday, September 4th. I was dead tired after work. Had a 1.5 hour nap that rejuvenated me some. So I decided I was down for another worm squishing party. Woooo!

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I'm getting pretty good at this! All that done in 1.5 hours. That's all I got done for the day, but progress is progress! Love how the top of the crank gen box transition came out. Hell, I'm loving how it's all coming out! Still need to epoxie under the power cell, around the right side of the ppd, glue the cyclotron ring step to the cyclotron and epoxie the gaps where they meet, and epoxie the parts of the bottom of the shell that doesn't sit flush/level. I want the motherboard to sit perfect even though I know the movie packs didn't. I said idealized!
#4897978
Just a quick little blurb and some venting. Fixed the images in the first few posts that were from photobucket. Downloaded the images from the bucket and re uploaded through tapatalk. Luckily, I started using tapatalk early in this log. I don't like how much it compresses the image making them a little blurry, but at least they are there and visible.

Vent: F' YOU Photobucket! You were free for so long and now you want $60/month just so my old pics show up in my old forum posts? That's dirty! If they had said "any pics from now on will cost to host on third party sites, but old uploads are grandfathered in" would be sensible. But this? It's wrecking vast amounts of informational posts all over the net! SHAME ON YOU PHOTOBUCKET! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! /vent
#4898084
Got a very small amount done yesterday, September 11th, after we saw the movie It. Excellent movie by the way!

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I taped some wax paper to the ppd and poked in the screw holes. I reattached it and used aluminum tape to secure it where I want it to remain.

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Then I shoved epoxie in the gap and smoothed it best I could for minimal clean up.

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I filled in the gap where the cosmetic spacer meets the left side of the synchronous generator plating. Used an old gift card to scrape away excess.

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I applied some Vaseline to the threaded area of the ion arm cap fitting. I rubbed my fingernail through the threads to make sure they would imprint into the material. Next I wrapped it with expoxie and shoved it into the stripped hole. I clamped it down and scrapped away the epoxie that squished out. Hopefully third time is the charm on this piece.

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Then I squished worms into the small gaps around the power cell.

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If those were worms, then this was a grub I squished onto the bottom of the power cell. I used some scrap styrene to keep it flat at the top. I wanted it to be raised just a bit so I could work it flush later.


That's was all for yesterday.
#4898177
Thanks for the comments. If I remember correctly, and this was 2 years ago, I spent $60 on two 24"x48" sheets.
#4898227
Alright, almost forgot to update on Tuesday, September 12th's progress. Let's jump into it.

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Firstly, I "unscrewed" the clipboard barb fitting from the ion arm cap. I think it was too early in the curing process as the threads came out with it. I guess 15 hours isn't enough and I ended up screwing it by unscrewing it too early. So I repeated what I did Monday and clamped it down again. I'll give it the full 24 hours this time. 4th times the charm?

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I went on to clean up the front surface of the curved edge under the power cell. Filed it down with a jewellers flat file. Came out nice.

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I unscrewed and removed the ppd. The wax paper worked great. I grabbed my flat miniature concrete block and wore away the top and side until they were flush. Placed the ppd back on but didn't tighten it down as the epoxie wasn't finished curing. Just resting there it looks a ton better already.

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I wanted to get the cyclotron step ring permanently attached to the cyclotron. I held up some aluminum tape to the cyclotron and ripped it off at the length of the circumference. I folded a crease into it using the edge of the desk as a ruler. Then I cut reliefs into it about every inch. I made sure to then fold it all the way and crease it as far as it'd go with the back of my thumbnail. This was so I could rip the waxed backing off only the non cut portion. I affixed it to the upper side if the cyclotron.

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I peeled off the backing from the relief tabs about 3 at a time. Using the same scissors, I pressed the tabs into the corner first then smoothed them out. Lather rinse repeat three tabs at a time. Once I got them all pressed down I unscrewed the key screw on the bottom of the n filter and removed the cyclotron. The taping works twofold. One, to keep the ring in place, and two, to keep glue from seeping through.

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Speaking of which, I flipped this taped duo over and poured a generous amount of weld-on in there. Set it aside to cure.

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I grabbed the bumper and saw some low spots. So I leveled it out.


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Feeling that I've had enough practice squishing worms by now, I decided to go for it and implement the nice curved transitions from the side ribs to the flat center of the bumper. I started by cleaning and roughing in some texture for the epoxie to grip. Then I went to town.

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Originally I was going to use epoxie to fill in gaps on the bottom of the shell to make it last flat on the motherboard. Then I noticed it rocked. Which meant there was a common low point. This was right around the power cell on one side and the gun mount on the other. So I spent a good 45 minutes grinding it down, setting it down, checking where it rocked, and repeating. It sits damn near perfectly flush now with just a few gaps that are small and easily filled. Super glad it worked out this way! It's practically finishing itself now. (Psssh, keep telling yourself that. Riiiiiight.)

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Lastly, I went around and cleaned up the transitional nooks and crannies from all the epoxie worms I flattened.

And that's it for now! I have yet to remove the aluminum tape on the cyclotron to see if the clipboard barb threading worked. Till next update, stay frosty.



Oh oh oh, almost forgot! I haven't been exactly too thrilled with how my styrene bellows is turning out and have been contemplating getting a metal one. The price and 5 day lead time was putting me off. This morning I saw in an email from AJ that they were IN STOCK. So I pulled the trigger and it actually shipped already! Woo! Metal shock mount on the way! Exclamation mark!
twmedford23, Kingpin liked this
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