Octoports and more

I had a busy weekend and didn't have much time for the droids. I finally finished painting 1 of the octoports after several tries to get them right.

I'm really, really, really, really reluctant to even attempt to install these on my droids skins. Just look at the octoport on the left its already cracked and ready to shatter. Now way to even figure out how I'll JB weld these without them shattering. I'll have to take my skins on and off several times to get them perfect. I should just try to get resin replacements and plan on not using these.

Next I cut this U channel I got from Droidwelder and mounted them to a set of JAG drives. It will be quite a while another I can find some feet. So until then this will have to do for R2-Q5. Next week will be quite busy. 4 JAG ankles for both droids should be arriving. Then I can start to work on figuring out how to mount them to the leg and then getting both droids ready to be mobile.

No update would be complete without something on the never ending rear skin/back door project. This time I made 4.5 inch long by .750 strips from steel and screwed them to the lower part of the skins to help re-enforce the magnet section. Now I have something sturdy to grab when I want to pull off the skins. I don't have to worry about this layered area bending. Nor do I have to worry about the magnets sucking in the skins to far with the steel on it. I was kinda of bummed over the months this project was taking forever and not working. 

Now I"m quite happy with how everything has turned out. If anybody else has a Comm8A frame and full back door this is the way to go IMO. I also ordered 1.5 inch rare earth magnets that should arrive next week so I can upgrade the ones on the back door for more magnet power.

At this point I could probably reattach the outer rear skin. I think I'll hold off, order more VHB or whatever its called tape and wait for the 2 Xlarge hinges to arrive for the full doors. Then maybe just maybe in 5 weeks this part of the droid is 'done' for a while.