New dome bumps.

For my dome bumps, I simply used carriage bolts. I found some at Home Depot that had no writing on them. I simply primered and painted them, and they were good to go. I am all about doing things simple and this is as easy as it gets. Here are where they're going to go!

To make things easy, I 'roughly' marked the center of each circle, and took a 1/2" drill bit and used it to drill through my 'center'

After a few short minutes, I had dome bumps installed!

It is important to note however, that these carriage bolts have a "square" piece under the head of the bolt. Therefore, to get the nuts tight on the opposite side, you need a washer that goes OVER the square, this way you can get the nut tight. Here is a photo of the inside of the dome.

Painting the HPs.

First, let me say that I think I have finally addressed my lighting issues. There was a loose pin on the arduino that eventually fell off, once I soldered a new pin on, plugged it in, everything worked EXCEPT the front PSI, which I have an idea (actually, it's my friend Don's idea). So, now that that's taken care of, let's talk about painting HPs. At first, they were going to remain all silver. I liked the look, I was thrilled. However, I then noticed thanks to Edwardo that in "A New Hope" that R2's Holoprojectors are almost always painted in some fashion or another. Since I decided to leave my rear panel unpainted (a la ANH) I figured I should keep with the trend and paint my HPs. So, I decided on a color scheme that was going to suit my best interests. I made each one different. Here is a photo of how I placed tape around the HPs so that I would only get paint on the cowl portion. It's also important to note that there is NO PRIMER PLACED ON THE COWLS. The reason for this, is because when the paint chips (remember, I plan to weather him), you'll see shiny aluminum underneath.

Now, for this step. I took a one of those scotch sponges, one with the yellow/green coloring. Using the green end, I lightly rubbed it around the cowls to simulate some weathering. I did it very lightly. After the light weathering was done, I went back and placed some clear coat over it. This should keep the paint fairly durable, but also will allow me to weather more if I need too.

Finally, here is a finished shot with them all installed. For the top, I went with a blue cone and a silver cowl.

The front one, I decided to do a blue cowl and a black cone.

And the rear HP had a silver cowl and a black cone.

That's all for now, we should have the Radar eye in the next two weeks, and the dome will be done!

Q&A

Wanted to answer a few questions that i've received from several different people. Here is a short video showing some answers to some common questions!!

The dome is ALMOST DONE!

Been awhile since I have had some real updates, so I am going to provide a picture heavy post here to thrill you all! To start with, the aluminum Holoprojectors are truly a work of art.....had I known they were THIS nice, i'd have bought them a long time ago. To start with, everyone says you need to JB weld the screws for the HPs in place so that you can install them. However, after playing around with the HPs, I realized I could fit the outer dome over two of them, so I didn't need to JB weld those......then, upon further examination, I realized I can simply insert the screws into a blank hole, and then secure the outer dome. This way, i'll have the screws in place, and they'll be loose so that I can arrange them to fit the cowls for the HPs. Then, when I went to install the HP cowls, I simply placed a washer/nut combo on the screw, hand screwed it in most of the way, then took a pair of pliers, held the SCREW with them, and then used a wrench to turn the nut and make it nice and tight. It worked flawlessly and I guarantee you these beauties aren't going anywhere. Next on the list was bonding the domes. I had decided that I was going to use a lighter VHB tape to hold all of the panels that I had required to eventually open. My thought process was that the tape would be easy to remove. However, when I actually installed this tape, because of it's thickness, it caused these panels to barely stick up above the surface. Because I have no immediate plans of making the panels open (because there are other priorities to finish with R2), I decided to go an alternative route. A call to my friend Victor yielded some great advice.....he suggested I use clear Silicon II from GE. I went and bought two tubes of this stuff (although only one was needed). I started with the blue ring along the bottom....I made sure it was nice and level, and then secured it with many clamps. Once it was dry, I did the outer dome. This was one of the most rewarding moments of the whole build, finally, two domes, became one. At this point, I slowly started to install the panels. It's not perfect, but it's very good for my first dome. I am going to present to you a lot of photos of the dome...you'll see that some panels are not yet installed, and you'll also see that some panels are still taped in and have not yet been converted to the silicon. As I type this, 3 more panels are drying!

All that's left to do this point is obtain my aluminum radar eye and this dome will be 100% complete~!

Small Update.

There hasn't been much activity as far as R2 goes lately. I recently received my aluminum logic surrounds and got them installed. It wasn't the best installation and it's even POSSIBLE that you'll see some screw-heads inbetween the gaps. We'll only know once it's time to fasten the two domes together. I have gotten notification that my aluminum Holoprojectors have shipped, so they should be arriving soon and then we'll have all the parts to the dome and be ready to finish. No photos this time, but trust me, you'll be impressed soon!