Started Sanding Evercoat on Legs

Today I started sanding the Evercoat that I applied to the outer legs yesterday. I didn't get very far, I was only able to sand the flat portion of one side of one of the legs.

As usual, I started with 150 grit sand paper to take off the high spots and get things fairly smooth.



Next, I moved on to 220 grit, to get a finer finish.



I finished up with 400 grit.



I still have a long way to go, and unfortunately I don't think I'll get much time to work on this for a while. It's too dark to sand at night when I get home from work during the week, and next weekend I'm scheduled to help shoot the Senna drivetrain tutorial for the R2LA VI DVD.

Evercoat for Legs

Today I had some time to apply Evercoat to the outer legs.



Typical smog in SoCal? No, the wildfires are back. Unlike the last time, where the fires got within 4 miles of my house, these ones are a good 15-20 miles away. I think they are within 2 miles of Mike Senna's house, though.



I finished the first round of Evercoat for both outer legs, I will probably begin the sanding process tomorrow, and find out what areas I missed.

Squared Ankle Curves on Left Leg

Well, this should look familiar. In a replay from last night, I squared up the area where the main leg body meets the ankle, this time for the left leg.



Again, I used a hacksaw blade to take off about 95% of the material.



I used the square file to finish it up.



The legs should be ready for their Evercoat when the time comes (whenever that may be).

Squared Ankle Curves on Right Leg

Since it's too dark in the evenings to sand and primer the horseshoes, I decided to do some minor work on the legs.

The area where the ankle joins the rest of the leg has a 1/4" radius to it, due to the router bit that cuts it.



I did a very poor job of squaring this area on droid #1, and I was determined to do a better job this time. I decided to use a hacksaw blade to carefully trim most of the excess material.



I used a square file to remove the last bit of material.



I'm pretty happy with how this came out. I'll get to work on the left leg soon.

Started Final Primer for Horseshoes

At long last I started applying primer in preparation for painting the horseshoes. Once again I'm using gray primer (vs. white primer) for the horseshoes that will be painted white, so that I'll be able to detect the difference in color between the primer and the paint. This means more coats of white to hide the darker gray color, but so be it.

One of the horseshoes hadn't had much primer applied, so I started with that one.




The other horseshoe had a light coat on it, I applied a couple more coats. Three coats in all for both horseshoes.



Next up, the sanding/re-priming cycle.

Minor Horseshoe Repairs

Tonight I took a couple of minutes to fill and sand some very minor nicks that the horseshoes incurred the last couple of days as I was drilling the holes for the buttons and hydraulics. Too boring for pictures.

Drilled Horseshoes for Top Buttons

Tonight I had a little time to work on the horseshoes again. This time, I drilled the horseshoes for the top buttons.

For droid #1 I did the math, and determined that the top buttons tilt at a 5 degree angle. So I set my drill press table to tilt five degrees, clamped the work down, and prepared to drill.



I'm aiming for center on the X axis, and just slightly below center on the Y axis, since the button is going to be tilted such that the center hole will be pointing slightly upward.



Once the front hole was drilled, I countersunk from the back, at the same five degree angle. I test-fitted the #8 screw to ensure it would not stick out above the back surface.



I repeated the process for the other horseshoe and did a test fit. It looks pretty good, I think I can live with it.



With the bottom buttons installed, the tilt of the top button is a little clearer, although the picture is not the best.



The horseshoes are almost ready for final priming and painting. I accidentally put a couple of nicks in the horseshoes that I plan to fill and fix. These are almost microscopic, but I figured I will try to make them as perfect as possible.