By Dan Stuettgen
| Back in March 2003, Jerry
Posted the lasted drawings for making the Front Upper Body Vent. The
drawings showed all the individual pieces with neat little notches to help
guide the assembly of the part. I decided to see how difficult it would be to make one out of .040 styrene, since I was already cutting out the outer skins out of the same material. Using the Dxf files downloaded from the Official Blueprints section, I printed out full size drawings for each part. I then taped these drawings down to scrap pieces of ..040 styrene that I had left over from making the outer skins for my droid. Using a cheap ulility knife and metal ruler, I cut out each piece. Since it would have been very difficult to cut out the little notches that were one the drawings to help guide the assembly, I left them off and cut the pieces out as if they were not there. I did mark the bottom piece and drew guide lines on it to make sure the stair step pieces were in the correct locations. After all the pieces were cut out and lightly sanded I glued one of the saw tooth pieces in place using Ambroid Pro-Weld liquid cemet. This was followed but one of the squarish pieces that go between the two saw tooth pieces. I then glued the second stair step piece in place. This was then followed by gluing the rest of the squarish pieces in place between the two saw tooth pieces The next step was to glue the angled vent pieces in place. Photo 4 shows the fist and smallest one glued in placed. The rest followed in quick sucsession. Photo 5 shows all the vent panels glued in place minus the outer rounded cornered framework. I have thought about how I am going to make that part. I have thought about casting up a block of resin and then cutting it out using my scroll saw, but discounted that as being to difficult to get a good staight edge. What I will probably do it cut out a wood block the size of the inside of the vent and then sand it to the correct shape of the vent. I will then mount it to a larger piece of wood so I can clamp it to my work table. Then I will cut a strip of 3/16"plexiglas to the height of the vent and then clamp it to the wood block and then use my heat gun to heat the plexiglas up so I can bend it around the wood block. Once I have the plexi bend all the way around the block and over laping itself, I will then cut the excess off and use the liquid cement to glue the ends togther. after a good sanding to remove any imperfections, I can then slide the vent part into the frame and glue in place. I still need to make the form and cut the plexi. It only took about two hours to print out the drawings, cut the pieces and assembly the vent up to the point as seen in photo 5, 6 and 7. |
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