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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Spiders crapping on my dome prompt massacre

R2's dome has been safely stored on a top shelf in the corner of my garage. Well ... I thought safe. Never expected spiders to be detrimental to the dome. Lately I have just let the spiders hang out in my garage because they really didn't bother me even though I particularly do not like spiders.

So when I retrieved my dome from where it was sitting the last 6 months, I noticed a bunch of small black bumps all over the top of the dome. Right under where several spiders were living ! Now it wouldn't be so bad if I could have just cleaned it off. Only this stuff was like the spiders were crapping black epoxy. Even with steel wool it's proving to be difficult to remove. I take this as an act of war and the spiders drawing first blood. So by the end of the day I predict the spider population will be dramatically decreased around here.

But the really really good news is that http://Astromech.net is back online and completely redesigned. For anyone interested in building an R2 joining astromech.net is a definite MUST.

Today I found a great tip on astromech.net with a picture suggesting where to trim aluminum skins to accommodate the utility arms without binding. So they were trimmed today with my handy dremmel. I also cleaned up the skins and using steel wool and a file to remove remnants of the gorilla glue that I used (not recommended) to laminate the skins. Today some of the skin inserts will also be glued to the skins where opening panels are not necessary. Probably will only have several panels with hinges on the skins and dome.

Oh and we're back early from the Disney trip. All I'll say is it didn't turn out well and I went from being "Mr. sensitive guy" to residing in the doghouse in an instant.


3 comments:

Brian Clarke said...

Ouch! I know that spider thing. We had a huge one outside our sunroom. Somehow it found a way inside through the aluminum channel and decided our sunroom was both a toilet and garbage dump. We had the blood-stain like dots along with a daily supply of grasshopper legs or whatever bits he decided to toss out. Yeah, . . . I ended that fast, but not before repainting the window ledge about a dozen times. If your stuff is in the garage plastic bag it, for safe keeping. Trust me.
Brian C.
B9-0169

Mike D. said...

I always thought those black spots were from flys puking? (I really did)

To take them off I use Mean Green from the Dollar Store, (not Simple Green). Try Mean Green with a stiff nylon tooth brush and move up to 0000 steel wool if that's no tenacious enough.

Jim said...

Good advice from all.