Dome Progress

I've spent pretty much every spare minute I've had into working on my dome since I got it :)

So here's what I've been up to!

First off I numbered all the panels the sake of easy reference,  I used pencil but have had to re-number most of them as it rubs off easy when you're handling them.  I then removed all the panels using a craft knife to cut the the tabs.  Each panel had 3 tabs on it.  The best way I found to do this was to score through the plastic a few time then bend it, this gives a nice clean cut and saves on blades! I used 2 blades all in all for cutting out all the panels, thought the first wasn't fresh.

Unfortunately, one of my pie panels has a deformity on it.  Not a problem though!  I sanded down excess sticking out of it and later plan to fill it with a mix of glue and styrene dust.  I've heard this is a great way to sort out things like this so we'll have to see :)

 Next up, I took some scissors to the inner dome.  There's some excess along the bottom, you can tell where it ends due to a line where the mold ends.  I've just cut along this for the time being as I'm pretty sure I'll have to cut it back more to make a flush fit.I'm waiting for the "putting it all together" stage first.

 Ta da!  All the panels cut out, all tabs on dome and panels sanded down.

My inner dome and outer dome don't fit tight with each other :( Turned to Astromech.net forums again for the best advise here and have been told to cut the inner dome in half! While it pains me to do that it's a tried and tested method.  I'm exploring the best way to do this at the moment so hopefully will be in my next update.

Meanwhile, I've still got the dome baseplate to cut out.  I've gone round the edges of this so far with my trusty craft knife but boy it's tough!  Thinking I'd be better off with my router for this, but still haven't set up a table for it. 















That's all for now folks!