In my quest to make as many parts "accurately"
, I was looking at the vents on R2. The variety of vents looks and materials was surprising.
The New Hope vents (pocket and underarm) were made from aluminum, of course. But Empire and later ones used vacuformed styrene vents.
(It's also possible that some may have had resin cast vents, but that is conjecture on my part.) I also looked around the 'net to see what the fan sites were making, but no one is making an accurate set of vents. So again I'm faced with the conundrum regarding "accuracy".
Initially my plan was to make my vents from styrene, but I was fortunate enough to have access to an original New Hope aluminum vent. My preference has been to steer toward the look of the New Hope R2s for mine. After studying it for some time, I decided I had to try to make mine using the same construction techniques as the original. After all - how hard could it be?!!
Well, it meant learning a new skill.
Yippee!!!
I love learning new skills!
A lot of R2 is built from folded and layered aluminum sheet, and the vents are an example of this. Each vent is made from 3 separate bent plates that have been brazed or welded together. The pocket is an additional folded piece.
Now my TIG welding skills are mediocre at best - not good enough to tack these thin plates together without blowing holes through them.
I've heard of folks who were so good that they could TIG weld soda cans, but that isn't me.
So I started looking in to aluminum brazing - My New Technique!!!
Brazing sort of falls in between soldering and welding. It works just below the melting point of the aluminum, so I wasn't gonna blast through the thin sheet material.
Behold! The fruits of my learnin'!
The lower right vent is the original New Hope vent that I copied. You can see where it once had a switch and 2 LEDs installed in the pocket.
There is also a rough repair on its far right slot.
I'm pretty proud of these. I think I nailed my copies!