Hi Gang,
My apologies for not responding to the posts... I've been a bit busy.
Enjoy Weekend Update Part I of ?
Almost finished mounting the armrests. But still a lot sanding and cosmetic work to do
I ran out of threaded rod... :facepalm
I FINALLY finished up the interior of the access panel on Han's side
Found this larger silver part in our greeblie box and thought it looked the part
Found another cool looking greeblie
Found this old pinball light bulb holder
PERFECT fit
I'm going to dress the area with a few more greeblies then call this panel finished!
The new upper panel covers finally getting some attention
Primer
And now the reason for being... Let the chaos begin!
So what's going on? All these extra back pieces are being removed...
All these back pieces served to box the ends of the panels so they could rest on the back wall
Now... there's a new purpose!
With all that tear down finally behind me... I cut the two front vertical arches in half. This will act as a new panel side. For what?
All those pieces are being replaced with a new arch piece that will essentially create one LARGER panel and do something MUCH more important
I used a router tracing bit to cut the back arch and then mod'd it fit - the warping has been massive over these last few years!
Can you see it yet?
Now you can begin to see the outer edge! This will make it MUCH easier to skin and make the cockpit more modular and easy to transport
The hardest part has been making sure the front and back arches align. I dont think it's going to be perfect merely because of the warping and I've modding this particular cockpit 7 times! I promise this is the last!
Framing has begun!
Each arch piece had to be fixed and mod'd in order to fit and marry up all the other panels
The router bit I was using went belly up and jumped the wood - dang bearing!
Now for the lower arches
Blurry... sorry
I had to create a filler piece (in black)
After buying a new router bit I traced and mod'd Chewie's side
Another fix
Perfect!
This arch gave me a few issues!
I had to do a LOT of trimming so these panels would all fit together in the new box frame - BEFORE
After
It was finally time for the main top arch! I laser cut this small piece
I adhered in place and then used a file (no sand paper) to sand down to fit - the file kept the edge flat and straight
1st Pass
2nd Pass
Final Pass
Upper arch piece now fits perfectly! She is solid as a rock!
I have to trace this piece and then box in the upper two panels and then... we can finally start to skin this beast!
Back arch getting a filler piece
And this is where we are... The two upper panels are going to be a challenge to add the arch because they were not built the same way as the other. I have to think this through...
Stay Tuned for Part II!