Dome cutting

I received my 300mm hydro dome a few weeks back - its such a great piece as it is so it was a bit daunting thinking about cutting it.  After stocking up on a few new tools and clearing out our spare bedroom which is now a dedicated R2 building room I was all set.

All 13 panels in my dome will be hinged using the ultimate hinges (from Kevin Holme) so there is a fair amount of cutting to do.  I started on the inner dome so any mishaps will hopefully be covered up.  I've also started experimenting with polishing and cleaning the dome on the inner skin.

I first marked all the panels on the inside so I can match up the parts once they are all cut out.

I then attacked the first panel with a hacksaw - i tried to cut as close to the dome part so less to file off afterwards.


After removing the first panel I filed the edges with a large file, then a smaller smoother file, I then used some 600 grit sandpaper and finished up with some fine wire wool.  This managed to take all the rough edges off nicely.

The second panel I attempted to cut with my dremel but it was a lot more tricky and time consuming than the hacksaw so ditched that idea.

So a couple of hours later and the five top panels on the inner dome are removed and all edges cleaned up.

I also tried some different polishes to clean the dome.  I know others have sanded the entire dome to remove the slight imperfections - I am undecided on this as I quite like it as it is - I don't want it too shiny - plenty of time to decide on that one though.

Could resist sizing up one of the hinges... they are going to be tight but thats a problem for another day....

...and that's day 1 of my build done... can't wait for my next free time to carry on!

and so it begins....

After considering making an R2 for many years I got to see one up close over the Summer.  Needless to say I thought it was great and it set my desire to build my own.  After a quick google search I stumbled across astromech.net and started to read... and read... and read...  there is so much information on there and at first its all a bit daunting.

I decided that if I was going to build an R2 it would have to be the best I could possibly make it, and as such I decided to go all aluminium.  This of course if the most expensive way and the most time consuming with regards to getting the parts as some bits are only made every few years.

With that in mind I started jumping on every part run a few months back and have been slowly building a small collection of parts.  More about the parts I have got so far later and much more later about the grand plans I have for the electronics - today I decided to actually take my first steps in the actual build.

I decided to blog my build so I can refer to it down the line and also it will hopefully help out other builders in the future in the same way as I have been helped by many other blogs and build logs.

I'll also create a build log on astromech.net and post each time I update this blog.

Hope you find it interesting and useful - god luck with your build!

Matt