More proton pack pics
When last we spoke, I was trying to set up a means of mounting the bottom plate to the body of the gun. At one point, I had this:
I'm using the wrong screws and only two are in, but it worked. Sort of. I threaded the Bondo, itself. I eventually decided this was a bad idea. I felt that the screws would strip the threading off the Bondo. It's somewhat brittle. Easily ground away with sand paper. Some people suggested totally removing the Bondo and using epoxy to stick threaded inserts in place. And that's what I was going to do. Let me diverge for a moment.
On the rear of the gun body, there is a small block that has a hose connector and a red light. The piece I was going to use was uneven so I needed to add some material. To do this, I was going to make a mold and fill in with Bondo. Enter pics:
Mold in place; holes to allow Bondo to really attach
Mold filled up and waiting to set
After the Bondo dried with the mold removed
I removed the excess. That turned out to be most of it. So I had a pretty solid bar of Bondo left over. And the console block looked like:
The black piece under is just for contrast. It was going to be the bottom that was shown in the first image, just painted. However, as we'll see in a moment, the hole placement is no longer correct.
So... when I had that large chunk of free Bondo, I decided to get a sense of how strong it was. So I tried to break it in half. It was a half inch by one inch by about four or five. I could not easily snap it in half. I took a strong stab at it with a screw driver and that only scratched it a bit. So I decided it was tougher stuff than I thought. So, back to the mounting scheme for the bottom plate:
Unfortunately, the picture is a little blurry. But what I did was grind out a large hole in each of the Bondo-formed mounting points. Large enough to stick in my threaded insert. FYI, that's something that has a hole with threads for a screw to go in, as well as larger threads on the outside, so it can be threaded into something. Picture just the threaded part of a very fat screw with a hole in the middle for a smaller screw. I put some epoxy in the holes in the Bondo, put some epoxy on the outer threads of the inserts, and then plunked them in three of the holes. I also coated the outside of the Bondo with epoxy. I feel pretty good about the overall strength of these, now. And no moving parts (turning screws) ever touch the Bondo. Which was my biggest concern. Three more inserts to go and then I can try to make a new bottom plate and get the holes mapped out.
Now, back to the pack. One thing I discovered was that it was going to be hard to mount the lights. The pack has five light windows. Four circular red ones in the cyclotron and a rectangular blue on for the power cell. This was simple in the previous pack, because the body was made of thin styrene plastic. I just stuck a slightly larger piece of plastic in the right color to the back side. The new body is made of fiberglass. It is thicker and not of an even thickness. This means that it won't sit flush on the inside and the clear lenses will appear to be too far below the surface of the pack. For example:
This represents a cross-section. The uneven line along the bottom shows how the thickness varies. So, what I had to do was cut a hole larger than the size of the red lenses (in this case) all the way through the cyclotron. The hole is slightly smaller, however, than the outside washers that encircle the red light lenses. So I can adhere the washers to the outside surface, and then use the part of the washer that is exposed from the inside of the hole to adhere the red lens to that. Thus, the red lens will be only at a depth of the bottom of the washer, where it belongs. This required some pretty severe cutting on the body:
Three of the original "washers" ground down and hole enlarged
All four holes done, as well as initial hole in power cell
Looking at the holes from the other side
Although it's sideways, one might notice that there is the word "FILL" written on the cyclotron and an X marked near it. These are spots where the flat upper surface is not... flat. I threw some Bondo on those:
So, one (of many) thing that is missing right now is the booster. It's a cylinder on the left side near the top of the pack. So I decided to get on that:
Notice the larger power cell hole and the marking for the booster
Booster put in place just to see how it fits
Rear of booster. Notice the smearing of writing due to sanding, as well as holes.
Much of the area that would be difficult to reach under the booster is painted
The booster was sanded to make the rear surface rough. The holes were to provide extra grip so it can be Bondo-ed to the pack. Once the Bondo sets, I will also add some screws. The Bondo will provide some strength, and a lot of stability (compared to screws that would possibly allow the tube to still rock a bit). Also, before I drop the whole thing into place, I put some paint back there. It will be hard to hit it with spray paint later and since it's mostly going to be obscured it doesn't need to be a great paint job. The strip of white is where the Bondo will be. Don't want it trying to stick to paint, which can easily peel off. The Booster itself has some paint on either side of the holes and sanding.
One more note is that you can see that the neat, little hole for the power cell light is now less neat and less little. Now that it is wider, I'm going to make a frame with the rectangular hole exactly the right size for the lens. I will then sand down the top and bottom boundaries of the power cell just enough so that my new frame can sit flush with the rest of the surface. And then I'll use Bondo to fill in the cracks and level it all off. It will be like my washer scheme for the cyclotron, except that I have to have it sunk into the surface to be flat.
I'm using the wrong screws and only two are in, but it worked. Sort of. I threaded the Bondo, itself. I eventually decided this was a bad idea. I felt that the screws would strip the threading off the Bondo. It's somewhat brittle. Easily ground away with sand paper. Some people suggested totally removing the Bondo and using epoxy to stick threaded inserts in place. And that's what I was going to do. Let me diverge for a moment.
On the rear of the gun body, there is a small block that has a hose connector and a red light. The piece I was going to use was uneven so I needed to add some material. To do this, I was going to make a mold and fill in with Bondo. Enter pics:
Mold in place; holes to allow Bondo to really attach
Mold filled up and waiting to set
After the Bondo dried with the mold removed
I removed the excess. That turned out to be most of it. So I had a pretty solid bar of Bondo left over. And the console block looked like:
The black piece under is just for contrast. It was going to be the bottom that was shown in the first image, just painted. However, as we'll see in a moment, the hole placement is no longer correct.
So... when I had that large chunk of free Bondo, I decided to get a sense of how strong it was. So I tried to break it in half. It was a half inch by one inch by about four or five. I could not easily snap it in half. I took a strong stab at it with a screw driver and that only scratched it a bit. So I decided it was tougher stuff than I thought. So, back to the mounting scheme for the bottom plate:
Unfortunately, the picture is a little blurry. But what I did was grind out a large hole in each of the Bondo-formed mounting points. Large enough to stick in my threaded insert. FYI, that's something that has a hole with threads for a screw to go in, as well as larger threads on the outside, so it can be threaded into something. Picture just the threaded part of a very fat screw with a hole in the middle for a smaller screw. I put some epoxy in the holes in the Bondo, put some epoxy on the outer threads of the inserts, and then plunked them in three of the holes. I also coated the outside of the Bondo with epoxy. I feel pretty good about the overall strength of these, now. And no moving parts (turning screws) ever touch the Bondo. Which was my biggest concern. Three more inserts to go and then I can try to make a new bottom plate and get the holes mapped out.
Now, back to the pack. One thing I discovered was that it was going to be hard to mount the lights. The pack has five light windows. Four circular red ones in the cyclotron and a rectangular blue on for the power cell. This was simple in the previous pack, because the body was made of thin styrene plastic. I just stuck a slightly larger piece of plastic in the right color to the back side. The new body is made of fiberglass. It is thicker and not of an even thickness. This means that it won't sit flush on the inside and the clear lenses will appear to be too far below the surface of the pack. For example:
This represents a cross-section. The uneven line along the bottom shows how the thickness varies. So, what I had to do was cut a hole larger than the size of the red lenses (in this case) all the way through the cyclotron. The hole is slightly smaller, however, than the outside washers that encircle the red light lenses. So I can adhere the washers to the outside surface, and then use the part of the washer that is exposed from the inside of the hole to adhere the red lens to that. Thus, the red lens will be only at a depth of the bottom of the washer, where it belongs. This required some pretty severe cutting on the body:
Three of the original "washers" ground down and hole enlarged
All four holes done, as well as initial hole in power cell
Looking at the holes from the other side
Although it's sideways, one might notice that there is the word "FILL" written on the cyclotron and an X marked near it. These are spots where the flat upper surface is not... flat. I threw some Bondo on those:
So, one (of many) thing that is missing right now is the booster. It's a cylinder on the left side near the top of the pack. So I decided to get on that:
Notice the larger power cell hole and the marking for the booster
Booster put in place just to see how it fits
Rear of booster. Notice the smearing of writing due to sanding, as well as holes.
Much of the area that would be difficult to reach under the booster is painted
The booster was sanded to make the rear surface rough. The holes were to provide extra grip so it can be Bondo-ed to the pack. Once the Bondo sets, I will also add some screws. The Bondo will provide some strength, and a lot of stability (compared to screws that would possibly allow the tube to still rock a bit). Also, before I drop the whole thing into place, I put some paint back there. It will be hard to hit it with spray paint later and since it's mostly going to be obscured it doesn't need to be a great paint job. The strip of white is where the Bondo will be. Don't want it trying to stick to paint, which can easily peel off. The Booster itself has some paint on either side of the holes and sanding.
One more note is that you can see that the neat, little hole for the power cell light is now less neat and less little. Now that it is wider, I'm going to make a frame with the rectangular hole exactly the right size for the lens. I will then sand down the top and bottom boundaries of the power cell just enough so that my new frame can sit flush with the rest of the surface. And then I'll use Bondo to fill in the cracks and level it all off. It will be like my washer scheme for the cyclotron, except that I have to have it sunk into the surface to be flat.