R2-X2's Dome

We have the Crash dome with the carbon fibre panels.  It is a really nice strong piece, beautifully made.  It is very hard to tell it is a fibreglass dome.

But offering up the standard hinges, the results weren't great.  So we decided to use the CNC and try to make some to suit the thicker dome and the lack of inner layer on the doors.

Starting with the point we wanted the pie door to stop, we designed a new style of hinge, with much greater opening and clearance of the opening.  We then did the same for the lower doors.  After doing the 9 doors, but just hinges, i dropped the dome, busted 3 hinges and proved my dome strength theories and my hinge weak point ones too.  So i redesigned the profile to have holes not grooves, Mk2 is SO much stronger.  I then sorted the servo arm and connection and ran a few tests.

Then i got all 4 pies reinstalled and setup the servos, at that point i couldn't resist another video. :)

So 9 servos, hinges and doors sorted.  But i had a carbon top panel, so it would be rude not to add it as a door too, right?  ;)

James cleaned up and assembled the other 2 HP servo mounts and i cut the top mount to allow the top hinge to clear.  I then test fitted all the logics and any other dome bits.  Once happy i started preparing all the elements and getting ready to paint.

Painting took almost a week.  The carbon panels are a lot of work to get a good finish.  Several filler and primer cycles eventually got them to a pretty good standard.  Then i gave the white bits 4 coats of stain, and the green/black 3-4 of colour and at least 2 thick clear coats. 

The dome stripes was the tricky bit.  I mounted the dome to the Rockler and made a bracket to hold the pencil.  Then slowly rotated the dome marking as i went.  Then using flexible masking tape i masked all the bits to be painted green, filled in the rest with blue masking tape and set to it.

Painting went well, stripes are great, but the blue masking leaked.  So I had to clean quite a bit of the white, but luckily you would have a hard time spotting the fix.  The rear PSI area could be better, but im happy with it, overall it is really crisp and clean.

So here he is, all elements now glued in and ready for the wire up and electronics, :)